The most important music of the early Renaissance was composed for use by the church—polyphonic (made up of several simultaneous melodies) masses and motets in Latin for important churches and court chapels. By the end of the sixteenth century, patronage was split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing, all were sources …

He was a Norwegian painter, whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes (built upon some of the tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism). In 1881, Edvard Munch enrolled at the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania, where experimented with many styles, including Naturalism and Impressionism. Never married, he called his paintings his children, and hated to be separated from …

René Magritte was a surrealist artist from Belgium. His reputation became well known for his various witty and thought-provoking images which are categorized as surrealism. Like the other artists and poets associated with the Surrealist movement, he sought to overthrow what he saw as the oppressive rationalism of bourgeois society. For him the painting challenges the correspondence of the image, …

He was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. From an early age, Salvador Dalí was encouraged to practice his art, and would eventually go on to study at an academy in Madrid. In 1923, Dalí was suspended from the academy for criticizing his teachers and allegedly starting a riot among students over the academy’s choice of a professorship. …

TRACKS – Poetry, by Sigbjørn Obstfelder Death does not makes me more afraid. They get constantly so many comrades. I will find the way, quietly following their fresh tracks. BURNED SHIPS – Poetry, by Henrik Hibsen Turn the prow of the ship from the north, the gods look bright, the played tracks. The fires of lands frost went out into …

Hunger, it tells the story of an unnamed vagrant who stumbles around the streets of Norway’s capital looking for food. The great shock that the Nordic literature procured in the Europe of the late nineteenth century, is related to a novel by Knut Hamsun, Hunger (published in 1890). A young writer, passes a period of winding reflections in the city …

CHRISTIAN KROHG 1/3 – Inspired by the ideas of the realists he chose motives primarily from everyday life, Christian Krohg – in the 1880s and 1890 – he was a central figure in the debates about Norwegian culture, also developing an interest in naturalism and socially engaged art. In 1873, he moved to Karlsruhe, where he enrolled in the workshop …

Gustav Klimt, an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement, a successful painter of architectural decorations in a conventional manner. He was born near Vienna, and lived in poverty while attending the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. In 1888, he received the Golden Order of Merit, from Emperor Franz Josef. In …