Artists' Ideas

SALVADOR DALI
The artist Salvador Dali used his own insanity and dreams to come up with ideas. His work would often show this as they would be surreal and very dreamlike in appearance. Dali would draw or paint what he saw in his dreams from memory.
One of his most popular pieces, The Persistence of Memory, was based on dreams in general, be they his own dreams or that perhaps the creature in the middle of the image is in a dream state. It was painted in 1931.

PABLO PICASSO
Picasso was influenced by many things in his life. He was influenced by various world art like African and Greek art. He was also later influenced by world events and the woman he loved. During the Korean war he painted the Massacre in Korea which depicts North Koreans being killed by Americans and/or South Koreans.

CLAUDE MONET
Claude Monet was influenced majorly by John Constable and J.M.W. Turner when he visited a London museum in 1870.
These influences can be seen in his Soleil Levant (meaning Impression, Sunrise) - which is dated 1872 -where he used the image of sunlight passing through the fog, similar to Constable and Turner.

CHUCK CLOSE
Chuck Close (born Charles Thomas Close) was an American painter and photographer born in 1940 and is still alive today. He based his paintings and photos on people he knew (friends and family) and, using the photorealistic technique, made his work. Close believes "inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you’re not going to make an awful lot of work". He therefore does not have any influences and simply does what he wants to do. Below: Close's Mark, 1978-1979.

DONATELLO
Donatello was an Italian sculptor, who worked within the 1400s. Donatello was mainly inspired by Classical figured, nudes and antiquity. He sculpted nudes and classical figures because they inspired him. His inspiration of/by antiquities was because of a trip he took to Rome to study some ruins. 
On top of these influences, he was influenced by some other artists, namely Brunelleschi and Ghiberti. The below sculpture is Donatello's, take on David (1408-1409). 

WAYNE THIEBAUD
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter. He specialises in Pop Art, and paintings of cakes and other common items. He uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colours in his paintings of these items. As a young man, Thiebaud worked in a café and it could be his experience there that made him appreciate certain foods like cakes enough to want to paint them. This is Cakes, 1963.