Claude Monet, 'The Magpie', 1868-9

My eye is not immediately drawn to anything. The image is so familiar, over familiar, that I look without really seeing. It is almost impossible to see this as 'radical' and yet when it was painted the term Impressionism had not been invented and this apparently harmless landscape was rejected by the French salon. The magpie on the gate is clearly the focus: it is the title of the painting, the only sign of warmth and life in this chilly landscape, but my eye still prefers to dart across the whole canvas than linger on the dark silhouette of the bird. Perhaps Monet simply needed a subject, an excuse to paint the light and weather conditions he was really interested in. Yet the choice of this bird seems deliberate. Magpies carry so much symbolism that it seems unlikely he just happened across it sitting on a gate, and the footprints which lead the viewer into the canvas also lead one to climb the 'ladder' of the gate's shadow and then the bars of the gate itself. The black profile of the bird's head looks towards the house in the trees. Is it symbolising death within or merely the dead of winter without? And magpies are also considered cunning and devious. Monet is being deceptively clever in creating a painting which looks so innocuous, simply a snowy scene and yet which becomes more complex the longer one looks.

There are three distinct divisions of distance. The ambiguous slope of the foreground which seems to tilt forwards out of the picture space and which is abruptly shut off by the gate and woven fence. Behind that the middle ground is busy - the twisting curves of the snow-laden branches - the background stretching out bleakly beyond until, fading with atmospheric perspective, it merges seamlessly with the sky. Yet all the distance is an illusion. The more one looks, the more the flatness of the canvas becomes apparent, just as the linear qualities which seem to dominate - the timbers of the fence and gate, the branches of the trees - start to dissolve into brushstrokes and the 'white' becomes colour. The deep shadow of the fence is almost blue in comparison with the creamy foreground, lit by weak, but welcome winter sunlight and the trees seem to sway with pinky lavenders. That is what Monet was interested in and that is what drove him to paint outside on a freezing day. But that is not what lingers in the mind and it is not why this has been used on a thousand Christmas cards. This is a painting of winter, so coldly evocative that you can almost see your breath as you stare at it. One of those rare snowy days when everything falls silent except for the occasional crack of a branch under the weight of its white blanket. When you want to go out into the cold and and enjoy the silence and the cold and the beauty.

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Nicola Pisano, 'Adoration of the Magi', Pisa Baptistery Pulpit Panel

In this complex, lively, exciting pulpit panel the eye looks up towards the monumentality of the Virgin, who commands this scene. She is massive and powerful, the largest figure with thick swathes of drapery delineating her forcefully protruding knees out into the viewer's space. Seated but still retaining dominance, she defines the classicising style of Nicola Pisano, witnessed throughout the panels of his pulpit in Pisa. Many writers have described the style - Eloise Angiola for instance, refers to the 'sophisticated understanding of classical prototypes to create heroic human forms' in Nicola's pulpit. Certainly in Pisa the prominent debris from the classical past remained visible and Nicola easily had access to various ancient sarcophagi for direct emulation here. The Virgin's features with her serene expression and curled hair beneath the mantle are in fact quite androgenous. She quickly assumes the position of a monumental Roman Emperor or Senator commanding

Marianne von Werekin, 'Sunrise', 1920

An endless line of men that tug the rope of a small boat soon disappear into murky, burning red waters beyond. Colour is fantastical, mystical and otherworldly, producing an atmosphere far from reality. This is the Symbolist work of Marianne von Werefkin, part of the German Expressionists that worked in Munich from the 1910s. A movement so often dominated by the male names of the time – Kandinsky especially – Werefkin was a vital participant, expanding the range of art produced and displayed, complementing her work with art theory and written sources, as well as creating her own Salon upon her arrival in Munich. It is easy to get lost in biography with a piece such as this. Wasted, human potential seems to be at the heart of this work, signalled by the endless line of men pushing forward towards the edge of the picture plane. There is a sense of struggle and a universality to the suffering through the portrayal of faceless men in similar blue tones. Looking at the date produced of 19

Mark Rothko, 'Light Red over Black', 1957

My eye is not drawn to the painting itself but the title of the painting, 'Light Red Over Black'. We would automatically think that the black is on top of a red background, but Rothko has flipped this around, subverting the title just like he subverting the meaning of what it was to be an artist and what Art actually was. During this time, art was going through rapid changes, with abstract expressionism coming into full force (Rothko, Pollock). But Rothko showed that all this change was for the good, even if for him, it was short lived. The colour red in this painting is searing and the black struggles to fully cover this velvety border, especially at the bottom of the canvas. Unlike the black squares which have a hazy quality to their edges, the red is clear and impregnable. It is hard to figure out what this represents - the Tate has suggested a window perhaps, but if it is a window then what are we looking out into? Perhaps it is night, or perhaps the viewer is catching a

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