Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYC

A Virtual Tour of the Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA), NY

“Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet
“The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh
“Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian
“Le Grand Nu” by Amedeo Modigliani
“The Sleeping Gypsy” by Henri Rousseau
“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth
“La Goulue arriving at the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
“Gas” by Edward Hopper
“The Dream” by Henri Rousseau
“The Moon and the Earth” by Paul Gauguin
“Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background” by Vincent van Gogh
“The City Rises” by Umberto Boccioni
“Broken Obelisk” by Barnett Newman
“Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890” by Paul Signac
“Tale of Creation” – “Genesis II” by Franz Marc

Highlights Tour of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

“Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet

“Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet is a monumental triptych portraying a water-lily pond, from Monet’s garden in Giverny, with the sky and clouds reflecting off the lily pond.

Monet aimed to give: “the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank.” Monet attempted to capture the continually changing qualities of light, color, water, sky, and lilies by dissolving all the elements in: “the refuge of peaceful meditation in the center of a flowering aquarium.”

“The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh

“The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh depicts the view from the east-facing window of Van Gogh’s asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village.

“The Starry Night” is regarded as one of Van Gogh’s most beautiful works and is one of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture.

In 1888 Van Gogh had a breakdown that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, and he voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole lunatic asylum.

The asylum was housed in a former monastery that catered to the wealthy and was less than half full when Van Gogh arrived.

He was thus allowed to occupy a second-story bedroom and also to use a ground-floor room as a painting studio. During the year Van Gogh stayed at the asylum, he produced some of the best-known works, including the Irises, many self-portraits, and The Starry Night.

“Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian

“Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian was created after the artist moved to New York in 1940. Compared to his earlier work, the canvas is divided into many smaller squares.

Although Mondrian spent most of his career creating highly abstract work not directly related to reality, this painting was inspired by the real-world examples of the city grid of Manhattan, and the Broadway boogie-woogie, a type of music that Mondrian loved.

The piece is made up of shimmering squares of bright color that leap from the canvas, and seem to shimmer, drawing the viewer into those neon lights of New York.

“Le Grand Nu” by Amedeo Modigliani

“Le Grand Nu” by Amedeo Modigliani is one of the dozens of nudes created by Modigliani in a modern style characterized by elongation of faces and figures that echo precursors such as Titian, Goya, and Velázquez.

However, Modigliani’s figures differ significantly in the level of raw sensuality they transmit.

Unlike depictions of female nudes from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, in which female nudity is couched in mythology or allegory, this series of paintings are without any such context, highlighting the painting’s eroticism.

“The Sleeping Gypsy” by Henri Rousseau

The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau is a fantasy depiction of a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night.

Rousseau portrayed an African Gypsy in a desert wearing a colorful costume, sleeping in the desert with an Italian stringed instrument, and a jar of water.

This painting has several elements from different cultures, and Rousseau has mixed them all into a unique image. Rousseau described his picture as: “A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, laid down with her jar beside her and overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep.

A lion chance to pass by picks up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic.”

“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth

“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth depicts a woman semi-reclining on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at a gray house on the horizon.

A barn and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house. Wyeth was inspired to create the painting when he saw a woman crawling across a field while he was watching from a window in the house.

The woman was suffering from a disease that limited her mobility and was 55-year years old. Wyeth explained that the woman: “was limited physically but by no means spiritually.”

Although the older women inspired the subject of the painting, Wyeth used his wife Betsy as a younger model to pose as the torso for the art. Wyeth wanted to: “do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

“La Goulue arriving at the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

“La Goulue arriving at the Moulin Rouge” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec depicts La Goulue, which was the stage name of Louise Weber (1866 – 1929). This French can-can dancer was a star of the Moulin Rouge, a famous cabaret in Paris, near Montmartre.

La Goulue was the most successful can-can dancer of her time. Weber became known as La Goulue because, as an adolescent, she was known for guzzling cabaret patrons’ drinks while dancing. She also was referred to as the Queen of Montmartre.

She initially worked as a washerwoman until she was discovered. At age 16, she was working with her mother in the laundry, but behind her mother’s back began sneaking off to a dance hall dressed in a customer’s “borrowed” dress.

Having achieved both fame and fortune, Weber parted company with the Moulin Rouge in 1895 and strike out on her own.

“Gas” by Edward Hopper

Gas by Edward Hopper depicts an American gas station at the end of a highway. This composition was a composite of several gas stations that Hopper inspected.

Hopper struggled with this painting, and he had trouble finding suitable gas stations to paint. Hopper wanted to paint a gas station with the lights lit above the pumps, but the stations in his area only turned the lights on when it was pitch dark, to save energy.

The light in this painting gives the scene of a gas station and its lone attendant at dusk, an underlying sense of drama.

Hopper also captured the loneliness of an American country road, which makes this picture memorable and leaves an impression with its combination of both natural and artificial light.

“The Dream” by Henri Rousseau

“The Dream” by Henri Rousseau is one of 25 paintings by Rousseau with a stylized jungle theme. The jungle plants are based on Rousseau’s observations at the Paris Museum of Natural History and its Jardin des Plantes.

It features a portrait of Rousseau’s Polish mistress from his youth, lying naked on a divan. She is gazing over a landscape of lush jungle foliage, including lotus flowers, and animals including birds, monkeys, an elephant, a lion and lioness, and a snake.

The Dream is the largest of the jungle paintings. It was his last completed work, a few months before his death in 1910.

“The Moon and the Earth” by Paul Gauguin

“The Moon and the Earth” by Paul Gauguin depicts an ancient Polynesian myth, in which Hina, the female spirit of the Moon, implores Fatou, the male spirit of the Earth, to grant humans eternal life. Fatou denies the request.

Hina’s figure is in full view, while Fatou, is shown from the chest up. The male spirit of the Earth is darker and more significant in the background.

Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of color and a style that was distinctly different from Impressionism.

He spent the last ten years of his life in French Polynesia, and most of his paintings from this time depict people or landscapes from that region.

“Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background” by Vincent van Gogh

“Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background” by Vincent van Gogh depicts green olive trees twisting and swirling as if reflecting the radiating heat from the ground on a hot day in June 1889 in southern France.

The olive grove is capped by the rolling blue hills of the distant Alps, beneath a light-washed sky with bundled clouds engaged in their own twisting dance of nature.

The Chaîne des Alpilles in the background of this painting is a small range of low mountains in Provence, southern France. The landscape of the Alpilles is one of the arid limestone peaks separated by dry valleys.

Vincent van Gogh painted many images of the Alpilles’ landscapes during his time in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on the north side of the mountains.

“The City Rises” by Umberto Boccioni

“The City Rises” by Umberto Boccioni was his first major Futurist work. Boccioni portrays the construction of a new building structure, as can be seen with scaffolding and wall projections in the upper background.

The composition, however, is dominated by men and horses, melted together in a mutual and dynamic effort.

Boccioni has emphasized in this painting the most typical elements of Futurism, the exaltation of human work, and the dynamism of a modern industrial city.

Boccioni’s approach was to depict the dynamism of form and the deconstruction of solid mass to portray the construction of modernity with developments and technology.

New developments in the suburbs and the urban environment formed the basis of many of Boccioni’s paintings. His passion was to capture of the staccato sounds of construction to the riot of sound and color offered by industrialization.

The original title of the painting was “Work,” as it first appeared at the Mostra d’arte libera Exhibition in Milan in 1911. The current title “The City Rises” captures the artist’s more dynamic vision and the start of the “Futurist” movement.

“Broken Obelisk” by Barnett Newman

“Broken Obelisk” by Barnett Newman is a sculpture that fuses the universal symbols of ancient Egypt, the pyramid, and the obelisk to reimagine the inverted obelisk shaft as a beam of light.

Our perception and association of pyramids and broken columns with ancient history has been reinterpreted into a current model of experience beyond the ordinary or physical level.

“Broken Obelisk” is a sculpture in the public art space that acts as philosophical insight into knowledge, reality, and existence.

“Broken Obelisk” was designed between 1963 and 1967 and is fabricated from three tons of Cor-Ten steel, which acquires a rust-colored patina.

“Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890” by Paul Signac

“Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890” by Paul Signac depicts the French art critic Félix Fénéon standing in front of a swirling colored background.

The portrait is a profile of Fénéon, with his characteristic goatee beard, wearing a brown coat with a black suit and white shirt. He holds a black top hat and walking cane in his left hand and a cyclamen flower with the fingers of his outstretched right hand.

The subject’s body creates a triangular pattern, while the curves of the flower echo the upward trajectory of Fénéon’s goatee. The background is a rhythmic beat of swirling colors contrasting with the foreground portrait of Fénéon and the flower.

The swirling patterns in the background create a color wheel with abstract designs meeting at a central point. A Japanese woodblock print may have inspired the background. Signac’s gallery of Japanese prints included examples of kimono patterns.

Fénéon’s relation to the decorative background may be symbolic as he was a defender of Neo-Impressionists against criticism.

“Tale of Creation” – “Genesis II” by Franz Marc

“Tale of Creation,” also known as “Genesis II” by Franz Marc, is a colored print from woodcut, illustrating the creation story in the Book of Genesis. Pure and uncorrupted life emerges from a chaotic and dynamic swirl of interlocking forms.

Color for Marc came to embody emotional and spiritual states. Animals were frequent subjects in his paintings, as Marc considered them more spiritual and closer to nature than humans.

Marc, in this woodcut print, was influenced by his studies of early printed Bibles and their woodcut illustrations.

Marc was planned to include this print in an illustrated Bible he was organizing for the Blaue Reiter, the Munich-based artist group he cofounded.

However, by 1914 at the beginning of World War I, when Franz Marc created Schöpfungsgeschichte II (Genesis II), he had lost his faith that the natural world could provide an antidote to what he viewed as a sick society.