Of the three scenes depicted, the left panel shows Christ presenting Eve to Adam, whereas the proper one features the depredations of Hell; much less clear is whether or not or not the middle panel depicts Heaven. This riot of symbolism has been largely impervious to interpretation, which may account for its widespread enchantment. Opulently gilded and extravagantly patterned, The Kiss, Gustav Klimt’s fin-de-siècle portrayal of intimacy, is a mixture of Symbolism and Vienna Jugendstil, the Austrian variant of Art Nouveau. Klimt depicts his subjects as mythical figures made modern by luxuriant surfaces of up-to-the second graphic motifs. The work is a highpoint of the artist’s Golden Phase between 1899 and 1910 when he usually used gold leaf—a method inspired by a 1903 trip to the Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, the place he saw the church’s famed Byzantine mosaics...

In an epoch characterized by the idea of pluralism, there is no consensus as to a consultant fashion of the age. Artists proceed to make important artworks in all kinds of kinds and aesthetic temperaments—their deserves are left to the public and the market to gauge. Later the notion of the “fine artist” developed in Asia and Renaissance Europe. Prominent painters had been afforded the social standing of scholars and courtiers; they signed their work, decided its design and sometimes its topic and imagery, and established a more personal—if not at all times amicable—relationship with their patrons. Other famous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists embrace Degas, Cassatt, Morisot, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Seurat. Notable twentieth century painters embody Pollock and Rothko of the Abstract Expressionist movement, as nicely as by Kahlo, Dali, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Richter, and Doig.

The transition started with Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe, and by the he...