When you get outside Paris, you will find Romanesque and Gothic churches of astounding beauty. In Paris, there's the Louvre, but make time for smaller museums, like the Musée Moreau and churches like Saint-Sulpice (where you can see newly-restored paintings by Delacroix).
Some background
videos + essays
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa
Napoleon masterfully manipulated his image, and this painting meant for Parisian audiences is pure propaganda.
Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment
Delacroix's orientalist fantasy exhibited to great acclaim in the Paris Salon.
Marey, Joinville Soldier Walking
The title of the photograph, Joinville Soldier Walking, suggests that this image of lines and dots in wavy bands represents a walking soldier. But how?
Nike (Winged Victory) of Samothrace
On the island of Samothrace, the wind whipped the clothing of this stone goddess of victory.
Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa
Géricault’s massive canvas takes its format from history painting, but its subject is ripped from the headlines.
Amiens Cathedral
Above the entrance to Amiens, animated figures and flowing drapery attest to the increasing naturalism of Gothic sculpture in the 13th century.
The last work of Eva Hesse
Hesse proves that powerful, emotionally charged art doesn't have to be pretty.
A Byzantine vision of Paradise — The Harbaville Triptych
This ivory triptych was an object of prayer and a vision of paradise for Byzantine viewers following iconoclasm
Fashion and Politics in Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s Portrait of The Empress Eugénie surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting
Fashion's power to reveal the nuances of political power, gender, and ethnicity.
The cost of war: Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi
Delacroix's painting is about much more than the Greek War for Independence—it is a universal statement about the cost of war.
Peter Paul Rubens, The Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency of Marie de’ Médici
The painting is an overwhelming and learned piece of artistic propaganda.
Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris
The total or partial destruction of churches by fire was a fairly common occurrence in medieval Europe.
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