Jan van Eyck was an early 15th century Netherlandish painter, considered one of the greatest painters in his time. He is commonly known as the “father of oil painting,” due to his complete mastery of the medium. Berthe Morisot, was born in 1841, and is now held in such high regard as Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, and Claude Monet. She is well known form her many portraits portraying women in everyday lives. Man in a Red Turban, Jan van Eyck’s painting was created in 1433, while Morisot’s The Bath was painted in 1885.

Since the 1920s, a certain view regarding meaning in art has dominated the Anglo-American universities and became almost dogma. This viewpoint insists that works of art should primarily be understood by how minds receive them rather than by the psychology that created them. Such an understanding of meaning in art essentially relegates the artist to just another interpreter of his or her own artwork. For this reason Roland Barthes famously proclaimed ‘the death of the author’.