This is "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli. He worked directly for the Medicis, a family of bankers who ruled the northern Italian city-state of Florence.

In Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", Venus is standing in the classical contrapposto pose. Literally meaning "counter pose", the pose features the subject placing most of her weight on one foot, giving the effect of movement. This classical pose became very popular in the Renaissance, in large part because of Botticelli.

The Early Netherlandish painters with whom Hieronymus Bosch was associated painted a number of altarpieces and devotional works to be placed in churches. This portrait of John on Patmos shows the purported author of the Book of Revelation in a reverential stance. Additionally, his positioning indicates this was the far right end of a triptych, a three-fold piece of art that had multiple paintings on one, usually religious, theme. Triptychs were common in church altars in the Late Medieval/Early Modern period.

Image:St. John the Evangelist on Patmosby Hieronymus Bosch (1489)

Hieronymus Bosch's work, including this painting of St. John on Patmos, very much plays with realistic forms and styles, but also includes bizarrely grotesque and unnatural forms and shapes. While unique in his own time and largely singular for centuries, this use of realistic colors, human forms, and landscapes with bizarre, unnatural imagery would all become hallmarks of the twentieth-century art movement surrealism, particularly as practiced by Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Yves Tanguy.

Image:St. John the Evangelist on Patmosby Hieronymus Bosch (1489)

"Impasto" is an Italian word meaning "paste" that is used in an artistic context to indicate that the paint on the surface of a work has been applied in thick, visible layers. Hieronymus Bosch's use of techniques that obviously showed his paint work, as in this painting,St. John the Evangelist on Patmos, stood in stark contrast to his fellow Flemish painters, who applied layer upon layer of glaze to give their works a smooth, reflective surface.

Image:St. John the Evangelist on Patmosby Hieronymus Bosch (1489)

This work by the fifteenth-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, entitledSt. John the Evangelist on Patmos, depicts the author of the Book of Revelation. The key signifiers of this fact in the painting are the subject's location on a small island and his gaze upwards towards both an angelic messenger and an image of heaven.

Image:St. John the Evangelist on Patmosby Hieronymus Bosch (1489)

This painting, with its use of perspective and iconographic imagery, can be called "Early Netherlandish." This work's strange imagery and collage-like background, however, place it as a strange and unique mixture, which was made by the Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch's work often portrayed religious themes, such as this painting's subject of St. John on Patmos, and used bizarre imagery, which is in both the upper left and lower right corners.

Image:St. John the Evangelist on Patmosby Hieronymus Bosch (1489)

Hans Holbein the Younger was the court painter in England throughout much of the reign of King Henry VIII, a position he was brought to from his native Augsburg through connections with humanists in Northern Europe. These portraits are of two of Henry's advisors, Sir Thomas More (on the left) and Thomas Cromwell. Both bear the distinct elements of Holbein's portrait style, with accessories telling of the subject's life and a sense of perspective providing a remarkable realism for the era.

Figure 1:Portrait of Sir Thomas Moreby Hans Holbein the Younger (1527)

Figure 2:Portrait of Thomas Cromwellby Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1533)

The pendant Sir Thomas More is wearing as a necklace in this portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger is a Tudor rose, the symbol of the English House of Tudor established by Henry VII. More was a key advisor to Henry VII's son, Henry VIII, and is shown by Holbein as a loyal subject to his king. Additionally, the round, floral emblem, a mix of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, was widely used in English society throughout the sixteenth century.

Figure 1:Portrait of Sir Thomas Moreby Hans Holbein the Younger (1527)

Figure 2:Portrait of Thomas Cromwellby Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1533)

This portrait of Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger presents him as a chief councillor to Henry VIII, King of England. Cromwell was from a relatively minor family, and he made his way to his position through a mixture of hard work and political maneuvering. Holbein presents Cromwell behind a table with books and papers on it to exemplify Cromwell's position despite his background and reputation.

Figure 1:Portrait of Sir Thomas Moreby Hans Holbein the Younger (1527)

Figure 2:Portrait of Thomas Cromwellby Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1533)