A selection of masterpieces which were rejected by the person(s) who commissioned them, or from major exhibitions. Illustrated contents with links.
Eakins
Blurring for dramatic effect, and to mimic photographic depth of field effects, were used in the 19th century, but motion blur came later.
Rejected from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition as ‘unsightly’, The Gross Clinic was hidden in an Army hospital. In 2006, it was almost sold for $68 million.
In search of warmth during winter, we go in search of palm trees. In these secular paintings, they appear in modern conservatories and on the Mediterranean coast.
From a naked woman devouring novels, through a class of young Breton girls, to Berthe Morisot’s and Lovis Corinth’s women reading.
Although painting and sculpture are closely allied, it’s curious to depict sculpture in painting. Examples range from early grisailles to ribald depictions of the Roman god Priapus.
Some artists not only spoke out against slavery and racism, but painted about it. Here’s a small selection of works by Turner, Eakins, Tanner, Biard and Morland.
A celebration for Independence Day, the fourth of July, with a selection of wonderful American landscape paintings.
It’s our faces, more than any other part of the body, that make us human. Paintings of veiled and masked faces by Pelez, Morelli and others.
Children playing, amateurs rehearsing, music outdoors, and Schubert himself at the piano: paintings by Manet, Degas, Thomas Eakins, Édouard Vuillard and others.
