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Hero or hooligan: Heracles killed by the hydra’s blood
Having won her hand by defeating Achelous at wrestling, Heracles married the beautiful Deianira, and was returning with her to his native city when the couple reached the River Euenus, still in spate...
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Leaf peeping: painting autumn 1900-1945
In the second day of leaf peeping at trees as they prepare us for the start of winter, I begin at the opening of the twentieth century, with John Ferguson Weir in the Connecticut fall of about 1901....
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Leaf peeping: painting autumn 1650-1899
There are two occasions in the year when we should all go out and celebrate the beauty of trees: in the Spring at blossom time, and in the autumn/fall when their leaves transform into flames. This...
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Giorgione’s few brilliant years of painting
Venice was ideally situated for outbreaks of infectious disease during the Renaissance. A major seaport trading with most of the known world, it was densely populated, and in the summer the warm waters...
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Painting a good story: Multiplex returns
Multiplex narrative, in which a single painting contains representations of two or more moments in time from a story, had all but died by the end of the Renaissance. The quest for greater realism had...
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Portraits of trees: Pine
There are many species of pine tree found across Europe, and even in the flesh they can extremely hard to tell apart. All those shown here have leaves split into multiple needles and bear woody cones....
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Hero or hooligan: Heracles wrestles for a wife
Once Heracles was able to wear his lion-skin and wield his club again, when he had expiated his sins in servitude to Queen Omphale, he resumed his adventurous lifestyle. After Ilus had founded the city...
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In memoriam Helen Allingham and her paintings of a lost England
One hundred years ago today, on 28 September 1926, the major watercolour artist and illustrator Helen Allingham died. All too often dismissed as a ‘mere’ illustrator, she was one of the pioneering...
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Critics against art: How John Singer Sargent was erased
It seems extraordinary that the paintings of John Singer Sargent were all but forgotten after he died in 1925, and weren’t revived until the late twentieth century. This was the result of a sustained...
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Critics against art: How British landscape painting was killed
This weekend I’m heading into the dark side of visual art, that makes or breaks painters and determines history, the unseen influence of critics. Today I look at how John Ruskin inadvertently killed...
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American in Paris, the brief paintings of Susan Watkins
Susan Watkins (1875–1913) had such a tragically brief career that her art was soon forgotten. In the first decade of the twentieth century she was one of the most successful American painters in Paris,...
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Painting a good story: Multiplex peak and decline
A multiplex narrative painting contains representations of two or more moments in time from a story, merged together in a single image. At the height of their popularity during the Renaissance some...
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Brushstrokes: a summary history
Until the nineteenth century, most oil paintings intended to be seen by the public concealed the brushstrokes and other marks made by the artist during their creation. As that changed most noticeably...
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Portraits of trees: Willow
Willows are a number of subtly different species with long, narrow leaves that most commonly grow close to water and thrive in wet land. Some species droop their shoots in a characteristic manner and...
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Hero or hooligan: Heracles in drag
With his twelve labours for King Eurystheus completed, Heracles was absolved of his sin of killing his wife Megara and their children, and was granted immortality by Hera and Zeus. He then fell in love...
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Painting la Manche: le Havre to Ouessant
This weekend’s journey along the north French coast started yesterday at the ferry port of Calais, and had almost reached another major port of le Havre, where we resume in the company of some of...
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Painting la Manche: Calais to Étretat
Almost a month ago I took a trip along England’s Channel coast in paintings. This weekend is the return match, travelling west along the north French coast of la Manche, again in the company of some of...
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Henri Regnault’s too brief history paintings
Today the best-known artist to die in the Franco-Prussian War is the French Impressionist Frédéric Bazille, but he wasn’t the only promising young painter to fall victim to that brief conflict: also...
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Painting a good story: Multiplex to 1600
A multiplex narrative painting contains representations of two or more moments in time from a story, merged together in a single image. In its heyday during the Renaissance it was relatively common,...
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Brushstrokes: Avant-garde and the psychology of perception
One of the many revolutions brought by the nineteenth century was the development of psychology, and the insights it and the early neurosciences started to give into perception. This blossomed during...
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