Located in Midtown Manhattan, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is considered to be one of the most influential museums of art in the world.
The museum is divided into departments that cover various forms of visual expression, including architecture and design, drawings and prints, film, media and performance, painting and sculpture, and photography. The museum also has an extensive library and archives holdings.
The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Widely regarded as one of the most important paintings in modern history, The Starry Night is instantly recognisable. This is due to the unique style that Van Gogh uses in this painting.
The painting is a reflection of the view from his bedroom window in Saint-Paul-de-Mausole lunatic asylum, which he voluntarily admitted himself after his mental breakdown in 1888. He painted this view over and over again, with different times of the day and weather conditions such as a cloudy or rainy night.
Some interpret this painting as a realistic representation of the stars and moon in June 1889, while others say that it is a metaphor for a personal Gethsemane. Whatever the case, it is a remarkable piece of work that speaks to a deep and enduring passion for nighttime.
Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein is one of the most celebrated and influential Pop artists. His art embodied the values of the movement and blurred the boundaries between fine art and popular imagery.
He was among the first Pop artists to explore cartoons and comic books as subject matter for his paintings. He did this by appropriating images from comics and then combining them with his own unique style of painting.
Drowning Girl is based on a panel from Secret Hearts, a DC Comics romance comic book published in 1962. It shows a girl drowning in a capsized boat, while her boyfriend looks on in the background.
In this painting, Lichtenstein mimicked the mass-produced image by accentuating thick black outlines and contrasting colors. The painting also incorporates the Ben-Day dots used in the mechanical printing process of comic books and other inexpensive publications.
The painting’s waves resemble those of the woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese artist Hokusai. The ambiguous relationship between the two works of art sparked controversy.
Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali
Persistence of Memory is one of the most iconic paintings of the Surrealist movement. It was painted in 1931 and hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The painting depicts a landscape with a face-like figure and a series of melted clocks. It also contains ants, which are another recurring motif in Dali’s works.
In this painting, Dali mocks the idea of objective time. He argues that time is a concept that should be accepted in its broadest sense, and not confined to an individual’s own deterministic existence.
This painting was the first of several that Dali produced in this particular genre, and is regarded as his best. The painting was inspired by the coastline of Cap Creus, a peninsula in northeastern Catalonia where Dali lived.
Paintings by Pablo Picasso
Picasso was a very experimental artist, and he created lots of different kinds of paintings. Some of these paintings are still very popular today!
The modern Museum of Art is home to several Picasso paintings. They include paintings from his Blue Period and Rose Period. As well as paintings that are influenced by African art.
His paintings also include portraits of his numerous muses, most notably Marie-Therese Walter, Dora Maar, and Francoise Gilot. Each of these women had a complicated affair with him.
After the start of World War I, Picasso reverted to more traditional styles and subjects. He began to draw and paint works that resembled those of artists like Raphael and Ingres.
His most famous painting from this time is Guernica (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid). It is a powerful anti-war statement that highlights the despair of the bombing of Guernica, a Basque town in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It is considered one of the greatest pieces of art ever made.