Bird in Space (L'Oiseau dans l'espace) is a series of sculptures by Constantin Brâncusi, a Romanian sculptor. The original work was created in 1923. It was sold in 2005 for $27.5 million, a record for a sculpture sold in an auction. The original title in Romanian is "Pasarea în vazduh." In the Bird in Space works, Brâncusi concentrated not on the physical attributes of the bird but on its movement. The bird's wings and feathers are eliminated, the swell of the body is elongated, and the head and beak are reduced to a slanted oval plane.

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This painting depicts the Viscount Ludovic-Napoleon Lepic and his two daughters, strolling through the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. For four decades after World War II, this painting was considered lost. It was found when it was put on display at the Hermitage Museum in Russia, where it still remains. It was later discovered that the Russians had seized the painting from the collections of Otto Gerstenberg during the Soviet occupation of Germany following World War II. The composition, with a large amount of negative space, is thought by art historians to be based off of a photograph, which was an interest of Degas’ in his later life.

Race horses and Jockeys, even more than dancers, occupied Degas throughout his long career as an artist. Paul-Andre Lemoisne catalogued some ninety-one works in this category, spanning the period from 1860 to 1900--a number that did not include Degas's equestrian waxes and bronzes--and they embrace a range of sizes and mediums. As with the Paris Opera, the spectacle of the turf gave Degas the base material from which to forge images of modern life in an alloy that fused references to the art of the past with details observed from life and scrupulously documented. But more than any other of his subjects, this was a genre that fed upon itself and spawned countless variations and adjustments. From a repertory established very early, Degas proceeded to select individual jockeys and rearrange them, to repeat poses and refine them, until this hermetic world lost all connection with the reality of the race track... This diminutive composition of Race Horses, which falls toward the end of the first phase in this development, is immediately distinguished by its unusual support. It is pastel, and not oil, on panel: the wood here, possibly light mahogany, is the kind that might be used for cigar boxes. Although pastel on panel is not a unique combination, it is extremely rare in Degas's oeuvre, and testifies to his continuing pleasure in experimenting with techniques and supports.

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Rousseau described the subject of The Sleeping Gypsy: “A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar beside her (a vase with drinking water), overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by, picks up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic.” A toll collector for the city of Paris, Rousseau was a largely self-taught painter, although he had ambitions of entering the Academy. This goal was never realized, but his sharp colors, fantastic imagery, and precise outlines—derived from the style and subject matter of popular print culture— struck a chord with a younger generation of avant-garde painters, including Pablo Picasso, Vasily Kandinsky, and Frida Kahlo.

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Napoleon Crossing the Alps (also known as Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass or Bonaparte Crossing the Alps) is the title given to the five versions of an oil on canvas equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805. Initially commissioned by the king of Spain, the composition shows a strongly idealized view of the real crossing that Napoleon and his army made across the Alps through the Great St. Bernard Pass in May 1800.

The Blue Rider is perhaps Kandinsky’s most important painting from the early 1900’s, before he had fully developed his abstract style of music as sound. The painting illustrates a rider cloaked in blue, speeding through a greenish meadow. The painting’s intentional abstractness had led many art theorists to project their own representations onto the figure, some seeing a child in the arms of the blue rider. Allowing viewers to participate in the representations of the art was a technique that Kandinsky would use to great fruition in his many later works, which became more and more abstract as his career wore on.

The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt is a large painting by Peter Paul Rubens, featuring the hunt on hippopotamus and crocodile with three hunting dogs. There is also a reference to a leopard in the pelt on the horse of the upper left rider. Rubens used the dramatics of diagonals to heighten the sense of immediacy and movement and redirected attention downward into the center of action.