The break-in at the French capital’s Paris Museum of Modern Art has cost not only masterful works of five great artists; Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger  but it has compromised a piece of history in the hands of thieves.

But why these paintings and why these artists? There sure are a wide range of works to pick. But from among the many choices of paintings, the thieves have meticulously picked these works of art because these paintings cost more than jewels. The five cost an estimated amount of almost 1oo million Euros.

These paintings are very expensive not only because they were created by great men, but equally because of it’s historical impact in our society.

Henri Matisse’s La Pastorale (1905) is an important step in his discovery of an idyllic world of pure color and unshackled eros. The 1906 L’Olivier pres de l’Estaque (Olive tree near Estaque), painting by Georges Braque shows the influence of Matisse and the so-called “wild beasts”. While the most celebrated artist, Pablo Picasso’s pigeon aux petits-pois (spring 1912) brings the new era of “cubism”.

The truth is, art thievery seem to be a growing problem in many museums and art restoration houses. And these very same artists seem to be the target.  The number of artworks already recorded by The Art Loss Register account 659 Picasso masterpieces, Matisse has 121 while Georges Braque has 89.

As these works of arts continue to decline in number because of thievery, probably, there will come a time when all these will just written words.

overstockArt.com is making purchasing art online a personalized and interactive experience with the launch of the “View in a Room” application.

The new tool will revolutionize the way people buy wall décor online. “View in a Room” allows customers to upload an image of a wall in their home and then place oil paintings that are available through the online retailer onto their walls. This new visualization tool essentially allows users to gauge how a painting will look on their wall before purchasing it and taking it home – something they cannot do in their local gallery.

“As an online retailer it is important to make shopping on our site a personal experience for our customers,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “‘View in a Room’ makes shopping for art online a personal, interactive experience, as people can now virtually experience the art in their home before purchasing it.”

Although retail is a mature online category, shopping for wall décor online is not. As such, overstockArt.com has invested heavily in creating a unique experience shopping for art online. “This is what makes it exciting for us to offer tools that will revolutionize the buying process for an entire industry,” said Sasson. “This new tool is bridging the gap between the touch and feel experience of shopping at a brick and mortar store compared to the obvious advantages of shopping online.”

overstockArt.com feels confident its customers will embrace “View in a Room.” “We are expecting to increase our conversion rate by 30 percent with this new tool because it’s going to make shopping for art online that much easier,” said Sasson.

“View in a Room” has two final enhancements scheduled before it is completely rolled out. In early June users will be able to test out framing inside the system and by late June customers can share an image of the painting on their wall with their friends and family via e-mail or their social networks. The final enhancement will make purchasing art online a social experience as people will enlist their social networks to help them select which oil painting will look best hanging on their wall.

“Most things on the Web aren’t social quite yet, but that is changing and we are working to establish ourselves as an online retail leader by making shopping online not only a personal and interactive experience, but a social experience as well with this new tool,” stated Sasson.

On Tuesday night, Pablo Picasso was restored to what many consider his rightful place at the top of the most important artists in the world. A canvas that he painted in a single day in March 1932 was bought for $106.5 million (£70.3 million) at Christie’s in New York – making it the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. The news must have turned dealers, auctioneers and art collectors delirious with delight as in the art world, at least, the good times appear to be back.

This is not the first time that Picasso has held this exalted record. In 2004, his Boy with a Pipe, which dates from 1905 at the height of his so-called Rose Period, sold at Sotheby’s in New York for a record-breaking $104.1 million. The extraordinary thing is that Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which set the new record this week, looks nothing like Boy with a Pipe, in subject matter or style. Most people unfamiliar with modern art would surely assume that the two paintings had been made by different artists.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which was last sold, for $19,800, to a family of American art collectors in 1951, is a very different proposition. It shows a naked woman lying asleep beneath a classical bust and a rampant philodendron plant – but it is not remotely realistic. The bold blocks of colors are flat and intense, bound by thick black outlines. The woman’s skin is an extraterrestrial lavender. Her arms are not anatomically correct, but instead curl beneath her head, mirroring the tendrils of the plant above her. A shadowy profile (a self-portrait?) floats among the folds of the blue cloth in the background, in between the plant and the bust. Overall, the painting has a distorted, dreamy, childlike aspect. Nearly three decades after Boy with a Pipe, Picasso was no longer interested in making paintings that even pretended to be life-like.

The story behind Nude, Green Leaves and Bust helps us to understand why it is considered such a wonderful work of art – and why Picasso, in the words of one of his dealers, illuminated the 20th century like a comet.

The woman is a portrait of Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom the artist met in the 1920s, when he was in his mid-40′s, and she was still a teenager. “When I met Picasso I was 17,” Marie-Thérèse said in an interview with Life magazine in 1968. “I was an innocent young gamine. I knew nothing – life, Picasso, nothing. I had gone shopping at the Galleries Lafayette, and Picasso saw me coming out of the metro. He simply grabbed me by the arm and said: ‘I’m Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together.’”

Picasso and Marie-Thérèse soon began an affair, which rejuvenated the middle-aged artist and quickly suffused his work. He embarked on a run of sumptuously erotic canvases which are the visual equivalent of great love poems. These dazzling paintings, of which Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is a fine example, are characterized by bright, joyful colors and plump, suggestive forms. Their brushwork is lush and fluid. Marie-Thérèse is frequently presented naked and asleep, as though resting after sex.

For better or worse, Picasso took a wrecking ball to six centuries of art history – and, by grappling with the great Western tradition, he fashioned a revolutionary new visual language better known as the modern art era.