Rose Van Lear
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Rose Van Lear
@rosevanlear.bsky.social
92 followers 40 following 1.2K posts
A beauty to behold like a diamond in the coal

Interests include music, HGTV, and art.
Always looking for kindred spirits.
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At the Lapin Agile, 1905
Pablo Picasso
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
In this celebrated work, now an icon of life in bohemian Paris at the turn of the last century, Picasso depicts himself dressed as a Harlequin. He is accompanied by his recent lover Germaine Pichot. Previously, she had been the fatal obsession of Picasso's great friend Casagemas, who committed suicide in 1901. The painting was commissioned by Frédé Gérard-seen playing guitar in the background— for his Montmartre cabaret, Le Lapin Agile, where it was the only work by Picasso on permanent view in Paris from 1905 until 1912, when it was sold to a German collector. #art painting
October 31, 2025 at 2:21 PM
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October, 1863
William Trost Richards
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
October, 1863 William Trost Richards Oil on canvas #art #painting
October 31, 2025 at 2:20 PM
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Self-Portrait as a Photographer, 1924
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Self-Portrait as a Photographer, 1924 Yasuo Kuniyoshi Oil on canvas #art #painting
October 27, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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Tables for Ladies, 1930
Edward Hopper
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Tables for Ladies, 1930 Edward Hopper Oil on canvas #art #painting
October 27, 2025 at 7:49 PM
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Light Up Your Life (For Sandra Bland), 2019
Cauleen Smith
Neon, Plexiglas, faceted hematite, and aluminum chain
#ArtSky
October 27, 2025 at 7:47 PM
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Head of a Male Model, ca. 1878
John Singer Sargent
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Carolus-Duran's teaching methods were considered radical; he taught his students to paint directly on the canvas with little preparatory drawing. He encouraged them to maintain the spontaneity of their initial impressions in the finished painting. Broadly painted with distinctly visible brushstrokes, this seemingly unfinished sketch displays Sargent's quick technique. This study may depict the same studio model as Man Wearing Laurels. #art #painting #JohnSingerSargent
October 27, 2025 at 4:10 PM
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A Male Model Standing before a Stove, ca. 1875-80
John Singer Sargent
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
This candid sketch of a male model was likely made while Sargent was a student in the teaching studio of Carolus-Duran. Sargent provides a glimpse of the environment as he depicts the figure posed next to a stove (for heat), perhaps having just emerged from behind the changing screen at left. The studio was run by the students, who were responsible for paying the rent and hiring models. Carolus visited twice weekly to critique his students' work and offer instruction. The unusual, thick texture of this painting's surface suggests that Sargent may have reused a canvas, painting this studio scene on top of an earlier unknown composition. #art #painting #JohnSingerSargent
October 27, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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Man Wearing Laurels, 1874-80
John Singer Sargent
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Of all his teachers in Paris, Sargent was most closely aligned with Carolus-Duran, a popular French portraitist. Carolus taught his students to create form using tonal layers of paint. As Sargent would explain later, "First you classify the values. Then you work from the middle tone up toward the lights and down toward the darks. Carolus taught that." Carolus also encouraged his students to maintain a dialogue with great artists of the past. He particularly emphasized the painterly traditions of Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Frans Hals (1582/83-1666). This work is typical of studio exercises in which lighting is used to dramatic effect. Sargent modulated his tones to create the sultry figure emerging from the dark background. #art #painting #JohnSingerSargent
October 27, 2025 at 4:06 PM
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Travelers in a Storm, about 1770
Francesco Casanova
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
The perils of travel in the 18th century are writ large in these theatrical and foreboding paintings. On the left, a bolt of lightning strikes a cart's passengers, as the escapees run hurriedly for shelter. On the right, horrified onlookers watch helplessly as a collapsing log bridge plunges a carriage and its occupants into a rocky crevasse. These imaginary scenes were calculated to strike a delicious terror into past or future travelers —a sensation known as the "sublime." In 1773 the French royal collection bought a full suite of four similar paintings for 24,000 francs. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 27, 2025 at 12:50 AM
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View of Dresden with the Hofkirche at Right, 1748
Bernardo Bellotto
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Only a few years after this view was painted, Casanova and his brother Francesco traveled together to Dresden in 1752. The newly built, vivacious city boasted a large Venetian expatriate community, including Casanova's estranged mother, the actress Zanetta Farussi. Bellotto was yet another successtul Venetian abroad, nephew of the illustrious Canaletto. Using a cooler palette than his uncle, he deftly captures the splendor of baroque Dresden from both sides of the River Elbe. His dramatic contrasts of heavy shadow and bright sunlight convey a deep sense of space. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 27, 2025 at 12:49 AM
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Let My People Go, ca. 1935-39
Aaron Douglas
Oil on Masonite
#ArtSky
Let My People Go, ca. 1935-39 Aaron Douglas Oil on Masonite #art #painting
October 26, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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View of Dresden with the Frauenkirche at Left, 1747
Bernardo Bellotto
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Dresden was filled with ornately decorated palaces, beautiful squares, river promenades, and magnificent churches, thanks to a court-sponsored building program in the first half of the 18th century. Augustus IlI, King of Saxony, commissioned a set of thirteen vedute from Bel-lotto as a means of recording the city's evolving skyline. The Prime Minister, Count von Brühl, quickly ordered a replica set. The Count's brightly illuminated palace, where Bellotto's paintings were first displayed, stands out in the painting on the left, beneath the distinctive dome of the Frauenkirche. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 26, 2025 at 10:48 AM
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The Lady's Last Stake, 1759
William Hogarth
Oil on canvas
#AdtSky
A young woman, torn between desire and despair, ponders the offer of a handsome young soldier. The original title of Hogarth's painting, Piquet, or Virtue in Danger, referred to a popular card game for two, and the perils that awaited a young woman when her luck ran out. It has come to be known as The Lady's Last Stake — sharing that title with a popular play, in which a woman, having gambled away nearly everything considers a final wager. Her "last stake" is her virtue, insuring her ruin if she loses —a consequence not shared by the soldier. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 26, 2025 at 10:47 AM
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San Cristoforo, San Michele, and Murano from the Fondamenta Nuove, 1722-23
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
In 1753, Casanova visited a convent on the island of Murano. It was probably Santa Maria degli Angeli; its bell tower is visible on the far left in Canaletto's view of islands in the lagoon, north of the city center. Originally intending to visit another woman, he spotted for the first time the nun he identifies in his memoirs by the initials "M.M." Although she was allowed to entertain visitors, "M.M." and Casanova later arranged to meet privately outside the nunnery. Unlike Canaletto's brightly lit views of the Venetian harbor in the first gallery, this scene has a gloomy, more dramatic appearance, possibly indicating a different time of day or less favorable weather conditions. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 26, 2025 at 1:17 AM
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The Fortune Teller, 1752
The Alchemist, 1752
Pietro Longhi
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
The 18th century was a golden age of rogues and scam artists. Longhi portrays two types of fraud used to convince gullible visitors to Venice to give up their money: palm reading and alchemy, a medieval protoscience aimed at turning lead into gold, and finding cures for disease and reversals for aging. The subjects also mirror incidents in Casanova's biography. Using his acting skills, he cultivated the aura of a soothsayer, shaping the actions of his victims to serve his own ends. He also learned the rudiments of alchemy to fool wealthy patrons into fund-ing his "research." As Casanova's schemes were discovered, he was compelled to move on from one European city to the next. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope The 18th century was a golden age of rogues and scam artists. Longhi portrays two types of fraud used to convince gullible visitors to Venice to give up their money: palm reading and alchemy, a medieval protoscience aimed at turning lead into gold, and finding cures for disease and reversals for aging. The subjects also mirror incidents in Casanova's biography. Using his acting skills, he cultivated the aura of a soothsayer, shaping the actions of his victims to serve his own ends. He also learned the rudiments of alchemy to fool wealthy patrons into fund-ing his "research." As Casanova's schemes were discovered, he was compelled to move on from one European city to the next. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 26, 2025 at 1:15 AM
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Liberace, 2021
Spencer Couture
Spray paint on canvas
#ArtSky
Liberace, 2021 Spencer Couture Spray paint on canvas #art #painting #Liberace
October 26, 2025 at 12:56 AM
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Aurora Triumphing over Night, about 1755-56
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Aurora, goddess of dawn, sprinkles rose petals above the partially exposed sleeping figure of Night. Fragonard's fresh palette of soft pastels, voluminous drapery, and whirling clouds create an inviting and innocent atmo-sphere, perfumed by roses and sweet morning dew. This gracious sensuality typifies the 18th-century French Rococo style. The composition's horizontal format and raking perspective (we seem to look up at the figures from below) indicate that it originally served as an over-door decoration, most likely in a Parisian mansion. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 6:13 PM
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Mars and Venus, 1770
Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
The armor and doves in the foreground reveal that these aren't ordinary young lovers. Mars, god of war, pulls back a sumptuous gold-trimmed curtain to admire Venus, goddess of love. Lagrenée masterfully conveys the contrast of Venus's smooth, marble-like skin against the crumpled bed linens. When the critic and philosopher Denis Diderot saw this painting at the annual Salon exhibition of 1771, he remarked with disdain that the figures looked more like a "handsome country boy" and a "pretty trollop than a god and goddess. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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The Desired Moment, about 1770
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Libertinism advocated for equality between men and women in the pursuit of sexual gratification. But in practice, equality was unlikely in a culture where men wielded power and in which women faced greater risks and consequences for their actions. In this image of pure bodily pleasure, the artful deceptions of courtship and flirtation have been displaced by natural, carnal desire. Frenetic marks of ochre pigment radiate out from their bodies, as though the room pulsates with the energy of their passion. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 6:10 PM
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Woman Seated at Her Piano, ca. 1924
Henri Matisse
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Henri Matisse painted this small canvas as a preparatory sketch for a larger composition. It shows his process of making changes to the figure's pose and position in the picture by scraping away and repainting the head and torso. Women playing the piano are a recurrent theme in Matisse's work. This painting, in fact, is one in a series of similar compositions that Matisse painted around 1924. They were staged in Matisse's apartment in Nice, identifiable by the distinctively patterned wallpaper. The young pianist is Henriette Darricarrère, one of Matisse's primary models. #art #painting
October 25, 2025 at 2:17 PM
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The Square of Saint Mark's and the Piazzetta, Venice, about 1731
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
This view of Saint Mark's Square captures the vast piazza and the neighboring Piazzetta (the smaller open space that connects the piazza to the waterfront) by combining two plunging perspectives under a hazy sky. In the distance at left, the Palazzo Ducale seems small compared to the venerable Basilica of San Marco next to it, and the staggeringly tall Campanile, or bell tower, at the center of the scene. Casanova claimed that "no monarch in the world can boast of having a finer" chapel than the Basilica. Repeating arches and piers emphasize the expansiveness of this square, so important to civic life. The piazza's generous scale is all the more impressive in contrast to the maze of narrow streets that surround it. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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The Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge, about 1730
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
Just off the right edge of the picture, Venice's Rialto markets served as the commercial and banking center of the city. This painting its pair hangs to the far left —emphasizes bustling commercial activity. At left, merchants roll large wine barrels to the topo (barge) for transport. Just beyond, a wooden shed sells lottery tickets, while in the foreground a gondola features rowers in festive striped livery. They may be dressed for a special event —or for a special passenger. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 10:30 AM
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Bacino di San Marco, Venice, about 1738
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
Oil on canvas
#ArtSky
A foreign visitor to Venice would have been astounded by the sprawling view Canaletto captures here. In Casanova's day, Venice's urban center was arguably the bacino, the city's bay and main harbor; water and boats were central to Venetian life and commerce. Here, Dutch and English flags fly on ships in the mid-ground, underscoring the city s cosmopolitan nature. Being on the water, below the expansive blue sky, offered a welcome respite from Venice's narrow, crowded streets and cramped houses. Although Canaletto painted his cityscapes with great precision, he also allowed himself to take liberties with the details of a scene in order to produce a more " "picturesque" composition. #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 25, 2025 at 10:28 AM
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Meditation, ca. 1870
Alfred-Emile-Léopold Stevens
Oil on panel
#ArtSky
Meditation, ca. 1870 Alfred-Emile-Léopold Stevens Oil on panel #art #painting
October 25, 2025 at 1:54 AM
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The Entrance to the Grand Canal, about 1730
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)
Oll on canvas
#ArtSky
The imposing dome of Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health marks the start of one of the most spectacular "streets" in the world: the Grand Canal. On the right, tall palaces crowd together, demonstrating that land is precious and that the front door to any substantial building is on the water. Painted a few years after Casanova's birth, this scene would be very familiar to our guide —he was born around the bend of the canal to the right, in the parish of San Samuele. One of his favorite pranks was to, in his words, "unmoor the patricians gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying by anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to indulge in." #art #painting #CasanovasEurope
October 24, 2025 at 9:00 PM