This is an index of the 91 well-known stories and narratives which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, and for each gives the type of narrative and its origin, then links to the paintings featured in articles here. I am also preparing illustrated indexes: because these are so large, I am going to divide them into subject area, e.g. classical mythology, Biblical, etc.

Achilles and Agamemnon (Greek tragedy, Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, retold by Racine) David, The Anger of Achilles (1819)

American Werewolf in London, An (comedy horror movie, 1981) Wright, Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008)

Androcles and the Lion (Roman tale, Aulus Gellius, widespread in Europe) Gérôme, Androcles (c 1902)

Angelica and Medoro (epic poetry, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1516) Delacroix, Angelica and the Wounded Medoro (c 1860)

Antiochus and Stratonice (Classical history, Plutarch, Lives) David, Antiochus and Stratonica (1774)

Bathsheba and King David (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) Gérôme, Bathsheba (1889/95)

Belle Dame Sans Merci, La (poem, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819) Crane, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1865)

Belshazzar’s Feast (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638); Martin, Belshazzar’s Feast (1820); Allston, Belshazzar’s Feast (1817/1843)

Benaiah (Biblical, Old Testament, Samuel II) Etty, Benaiah (small copy) (1829)

Britomart (epic poem, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene) Etty, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret (1833) Crane, Britomart (1900)

Brutus, execution of sons (Roman history, c 509 BCE) David, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)

Candaules, King of Lydia (shows wife to Gyges) (Classical history, Herodotus) Etty, Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed (1830)

Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale (poetry, Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) Burne-Jones, The Prioress’s Tale (1869-1898)

Chilperic I, murder (French history, 584) Luminais, The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Chloris/Flora and Zephyrus (Classical myth, Ovid, Fasti book 5) Botticelli, Primavera (Spring) (c 1482)

Christ, Crucifixion (Biblical, New Testament) Gérôme, Golgotha (Consummatum Est, or Jerusalem) (1867)

Christ, Deposition (Biblical, New Testament) Böcklin, The Deposition (1876)

Christ, Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) (Biblical, New Testament) Doré, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (before 1876)

Christ, Feasts – Marriage Feast at Cana, Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, Feast in the House of Levi (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-3); The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (1570); The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) (also, originally, The Last Supper)

Christ, Supper at Emmaus (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Supper at Emmaus (c 1559)

Christ, The Last Supper (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Last Supper (c 1585)

Cinderella (folk tale, Europe) Burne-Jones, Cinderella (1863); Millais, Cinderella (1881)

Cleopatra and Caesar (Roman history, 47 BCE) Gérôme, Cleopatra before Caesar (1866)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Dante and Virgil (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Degas, Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell (1857-8) Doré, Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of hell (1861)

Diana and Endymion (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, Diana and Endymion (1883)

Dibutades, Maid of Corinth, inventor of painting (Classical legend) Wright of Derby, The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5)

Diogenes, throwing away his cup (Greek history, c 350 BCE) Poussin, Landscape with Diogenes (1648); Martin, Diogenes Throwing Away His Cup (1833)

Echo and Narcissus (Classical myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3) Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus (1903)

Flood (Biblical, Old Testament, Genesis) Martin, The Deluge (1834)

Friday 13th (horror movie, 1980) Doig, Echo Lake (1988); Canoe-Lake (1997-8)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Hercules and the Hydra (Greek myth, the Labours of Hercules) Moreau, Hercules and the Lernean Hydra (1876)

Hero and Leander (Greek myth, Musaeus) Turner, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) Etty, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1827); Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body (1829)

Horatii and Curiatii (Roman legend/history, Livy, Dionysius) David, The Oath of the Horatii (1784-5)

Jael and Sisera – see Judith and Holofernes

Jason and Medea (Classical story, Jason and the Golden Fleece) Moreau, Jason (1865) Waterhouse, Jason and Medea (1907)

John the Baptist and Salome (Biblical, New Testament) Moreau, Salome (1876)

Joshua, commanding the sun at Gibeon (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still (c 1840)

Judith and Holofernes (Biblical, Old Testament Apocrypha, Judith) Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1611-2, 1620-1); Veronese, Caravaggio, Bigot (also Jael and Sisera) Etty, Study for Judith and Holofernes (c 1827) Doré, Judith and Holofernes (1866) Vernet, Judith and Holofernes (study) (1828/1832)

Julius Caesar, Assassination (Roman history, 44 BCE) Gérôme, The Death of Caesar (1859-67)

Jupiter and Semele (Greek myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Moreau, Jupiter and Semele (1895)

Lucretia (Roman history, c 510-507 BCE) Rembrandt, Lucretia (1664, 1666); Veronese, Gentileschi, Kneller

Macbeth (Shakespeare, play, Macbeth) Martin, Macbeth (1820)

Madeline and Porphyro (The Eve of St Agnes) (Poem, John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 1819) Hunt, The flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the drunkenness attending the revelry (The Eve of St. Agnes) (study) (1848)

Malade Imaginaire, Le (The Imaginary Invalid, Argan) (play, Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire, 1673) Daumier, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) (c 1860-2)

Manfred (poem, Lord Byron, Manfred: A Dramatic Poem, 1816-7) Martin, Manfred and the Alpine Witch (1837)

Marat, assassination (French history, 1793) David, Marat Assassinated (1793)

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Execution (French history, 1867) Manet, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Mazeppa (poem, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, 1819) Vernet, Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826)

Medusa, The Raft of the (French history, 1816) Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-9)

Merlin and Nimue (Arthurian legend, various re-tellings) Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (1870-4)

Musidora (poem, James Thomson, Summer, 1727) Etty, Musidora: The Bather ‘At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’ (replica) (c 1846)

Nessus and Deianira (Classical myth) Böcklin, Nessus and Deianira (1898)

Ney, Marshall Michel, Death (French history, 1815) Gérôme, The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Calypso (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Böcklin, Odysseus and Calypso (1883)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Circe (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Penelope (wife) (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Wright of Derby, Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamp-light (1785)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Polyphemus (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Böcklin, Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Sirens (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) Böcklin, Sirens (1875)

Oedipus and the Sphinx (Greek legend) Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808, 1827); Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)

Ophelia (Shakespeare, play, Hamlet, Act IV scene vii) Millais, Ophelia (1851-2)

Orpheus and Eurydice (Classical myth, Virgil, Georgics, and Ovid, Metamorphoses) Corot, Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Doré, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (1863)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

Paris, Judgement of (Classical myth) Renoir, The Judgement of Paris (c 1908, c 1908-10); Cézanne, The Judgment of Paris (1862-4)

Persephone and Hades (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, The Fate of Persephone (1878)

Phryné and the Areopagus (Greek history, Athenaeus and others, c 350 BCE) Gérôme, Phryné before the Areopagus (1861)

Pilgrim’s Progress (allegorical novel, John Bunyan, 1678) Palmer, Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation (1848); The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress (1851)

Psyche and Cupid (Classical mythology, Apuleius) Luminais, Psyché (1886)

Pygmalion and Galatea (Greek legend, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (study) (1890)

Quixote, Don (novel, Miguel Cervantes, 1605, 1615) Daumier, Don Quixote and the Dead Mule (1867)

Rinaldo and Armida (epic poetry, Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) Poussin, Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630) (also Tancred and Erminia) van Dyck, Vassallo, Lippi, van Mieris, Conca, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Zugno, Cades, Hoet the Elder, Kauffman, de la Fosse, Muller, Stillman Collier, The Garden of Armida (1899)

Roger and Angelica (epic poem, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso) Ingres, Roger (Ruggiero) Rescuing Angelica (1819) Böcklin, Roger freeing Angelica (1873, 1879-80)

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, play, Romeo and Juliet, 1597) Wright of Derby, Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene (1790)

Romulus, victory over Acron (Roman history, Plutarch) Ingres, Romulus’ Victory over Acron, (1812)

Ruth and Boaz (Biblical, Old Testament) Crane, Ruth and Boaz (1863)

Sabine Women, Intervention (Roman history) David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)

Sadak (novel, James Ridley, Tales of the Genii, 1764) Martin, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812)

Saint Anthony, Temptation (Saints, c 200 CE) Cézanne, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1875)

Samson and Delilah (Biblical, Old Testament, Judges) Etty, Delilah before the Blinded Samson (date not known)

Sardanapalus, Death of (Greek history and later play by Byron, 1821) Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

Shalott, Lady of (Poem, Arthurian, Tennyson, 1833) Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (1888); “I am Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1915) Crane, The Lady of Shalott (1862)

Sleeping Beauty (folk tale, Europe, Brothers Grimm and others) Collier, The Sleeping Beauty (1921)

Snow White (folk tale, Europe) Rego, Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995)

Socrates, death (Greek history, 399 BCE, Plato, Phaedo) David, The Death of Socrates (1787)

Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah (1852)

Tancred and Erminia – see Rinaldo and Armida

Tristan and Isolde (Arthurian legend, Persian origin) Waterhouse, Tristan and Isolde (1916)

Vale of Tears (Biblical, Old Testament, Psalm 83) Doré, The Vale of Tears (unfinished) (1883)

Yellow Rose of Texas (folk song, USA) Wright, The Yellow Rose of Texas (2008)

This is an index of the 35 well-known stories and narratives from classical Greek and Roman sources which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Achilles and Agamemnon (Greek tragedy, Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, retold by Racine) David, The Anger of Achilles (1819)

Androcles and the Lion (Roman tale, Aulus Gellius, widespread in Europe) Gérôme, Androcles (c 1902)

Antiochus and Stratonice (Classical history, Plutarch, Lives) David, Antiochus and Stratonica (1774)

Brutus, execution of sons (Roman history, c 509 BCE) David, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)

Candaules, King of Lydia (shows wife to Gyges) (Classical history, Herodotus) Etty, Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed (1830)

Chloris/Flora and Zephyrus (Classical myth, Ovid, Fasti book 5) Botticelli, Primavera (Spring) (c 1482)

Cleopatra and Caesar (Roman history, 47 BCE) Gérôme, Cleopatra before Caesar (1866)

Diana and Endymion (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, Diana and Endymion (1883)

Dibutades, Maid of Corinth, inventor of painting (Classical legend) Wright of Derby, The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5)

Diogenes, throwing away his cup (Greek history, c 350 BCE) Poussin, Landscape with Diogenes (1648); Martin, Diogenes Throwing Away His Cup (1833)

Echo and Narcissus (Classical myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3) Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus (1903)

Hercules and the Hydra (Greek myth, the Labours of Hercules) Moreau, Hercules and the Lernean Hydra (1876)

Hero and Leander (Greek myth, Musaeus) Turner, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) Etty, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1827); Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body (1829)

Horatii and Curiatii (Roman legend/history, Livy, Dionysius) David, The Oath of the Horatii (1784-5)

Jason and Medea (Classical story, Jason and the Golden Fleece) Moreau, Jason (1865) Waterhouse, Jason and Medea (1907)

Julius Caesar, Assassination (Roman history, 44 BCE) Gérôme, The Death of Caesar (1859-67)

Jupiter and Semele (Greek myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Moreau, Jupiter and Semele (1895)

Lucretia (Roman history, c 510-507 BCE) Rembrandt, Lucretia (1664, 1666); Veronese, Gentileschi, Kneller

Nessus and Deianira (Classical myth) Böcklin, Nessus and Deianira (1898)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Calypso (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Böcklin, Odysseus and Calypso (1883)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Circe (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Penelope (wife) (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Wright of Derby, Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamp-light (1785)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Polyphemus (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Böcklin, Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Sirens (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) Böcklin, Sirens (1875)

Oedipus and the Sphinx (Greek legend) Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808, 1827); Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)

Orpheus and Eurydice (Classical myth, Virgil, Georgics, and Ovid, Metamorphoses) Corot, Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)

Paris, Judgement of (Classical myth) Renoir, The Judgement of Paris (c 1908, c 1908-10); Cézanne, The Judgment of Paris (1862-4)

Persephone and Hades (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, The Fate of Persephone (1878)

Phryné and the Areopagus (Greek history, Athenaeus and others, c 350 BCE) Gérôme, Phryné before the Areopagus (1861)

Psyche and Cupid (Classical mythology, Apuleius) Luminais, Psyché (1886)

Pygmalion and Galatea (Greek legend, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (study) (1890)

Romulus, victory over Acron (Roman history, Plutarch) Ingres, Romulus’ Victory over Acron, (1812)

Sabine Women, Intervention (Roman history) David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)

Sardanapalus, Death of (Greek history and later play by Byron, 1821) Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

Socrates, death (Greek history, 399 BCE, Plato, Phaedo) David, The Death of Socrates (1787)

This is an index of the 19 well-known stories and narratives from Biblical sources (including accounts of the lives of the Saints) which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. classical.

Bathsheba and King David (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) Gérôme, Bathsheba (1889/95)

Belshazzar’s Feast (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638); Martin, Belshazzar’s Feast (1820); Allston, Belshazzar’s Feast (1817/1843)

Benaiah (Biblical, Old Testament, Samuel II) Etty, Benaiah (small copy) (1829)

Christ, Crucifixion (Biblical, New Testament) Gérôme, Golgotha (Consummatum Est, or Jerusalem) (1867)

Christ, Deposition (Biblical, New Testament) Böcklin, The Deposition (1876)

Christ, Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) (Biblical, New Testament) Doré, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (before 1876)

Christ, Feasts – Marriage Feast at Cana, Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, Feast in the House of Levi (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-3); The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (1570); The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) (also, originally, The Last Supper)

Christ, Supper at Emmaus (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Supper at Emmaus (c 1559)

Christ, The Last Supper (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Last Supper (c 1585)

Flood (Biblical, Old Testament, Genesis) Martin, The Deluge (1834)

Jael and Sisera – see Judith and Holofernes

John the Baptist and Salome (Biblical, New Testament) Moreau, Salome (1876)

Joshua, commanding the sun at Gibeon (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still (c 1840)

Judith and Holofernes (Biblical, Old Testament Apocrypha, Judith) Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1611-2, 1620-1); Veronese, Caravaggio, Bigot (also Jael and Sisera) Etty, Study for Judith and Holofernes (c 1827) Doré, Judith and Holofernes (1866) Vernet, Judith and Holofernes (study) (1828/1832)

Ruth and Boaz (Biblical, Old Testament) Crane, Ruth and Boaz (1863)

Saint Anthony, Temptation (Saints, c 200 CE) Cézanne, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1875)

Samson and Delilah (Biblical, Old Testament, Judges) Etty, Delilah before the Blinded Samson (date not known)

Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah (1852)

Vale of Tears (Biblical, Old Testament, Psalm 83) Doré, The Vale of Tears (unfinished) (1883)

This is an index of the 32 well-known stories and narratives from post-classical literary and similar sources which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

American Werewolf in London, An (comedy horror movie, 1981) Wright, Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008)

Angelica and Medoro (epic poetry, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1516) Delacroix, Angelica and the Wounded Medoro (c 1860)

Belle Dame Sans Merci, La (poem, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819) Crane, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1865)

Britomart (epic poem, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene) Etty, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret (1833) Crane, Britomart (1900)

Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale (poetry, Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) Burne-Jones, The Prioress’s Tale (1869-1898)

Cinderella (folk tale, Europe) Burne-Jones, Cinderella (1863); Millais, Cinderella (1881)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Dante and Virgil (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Degas, Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell (1857-8) Doré, Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of hell (1861)

Friday 13th (horror movie, 1980) Doig, Echo Lake (1988); Canoe-Lake (1997-8)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Macbeth (Shakespeare, play, Macbeth) Martin, Macbeth (1820)

Madeline and Porphyro (The Eve of St Agnes) (Poem, John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 1819) Hunt, The flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the drunkenness attending the revelry (The Eve of St. Agnes) (study) (1848)

Malade Imaginaire, Le (The Imaginary Invalid, Argan) (play, Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire, 1673) Daumier, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) (c 1860-2)

Manfred (poem, Lord Byron, Manfred: A Dramatic Poem, 1816-7) Martin, Manfred and the Alpine Witch (1837)

Mazeppa (poem, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, 1819) Vernet, Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826)

Merlin and Nimue (Arthurian legend, various re-tellings) Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (1870-4)

Musidora (poem, James Thomson, Summer, 1727) Etty, Musidora: The Bather ‘At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’ (replica) (c 1846)

Ophelia (Shakespeare, play, Hamlet, Act IV scene vii) Millais, Ophelia (1851-2)

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Doré, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (1863)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

Pilgrim’s Progress (allegorical novel, John Bunyan, 1678) Palmer, Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation (1848); The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress (1851)

Quixote, Don (novel, Miguel Cervantes, 1605, 1615) Daumier, Don Quixote and the Dead Mule (1867)

Rinaldo and Armida (epic poetry, Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) Poussin, Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630) (also Tancred and Erminia) van Dyck, Vassallo, Lippi, van Mieris, Conca, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Zugno, Cades, Hoet the Elder, Kauffman, de la Fosse, Muller, Stillman Collier, The Garden of Armida (1899)

Roger and Angelica (epic poem, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso) Ingres, Roger (Ruggiero) Rescuing Angelica (1819) Böcklin, Roger freeing Angelica (1873, 1879-80)

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, play, Romeo and Juliet, 1597) Wright of Derby, Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene (1790)

Sadak (novel, James Ridley, Tales of the Genii, 1764) Martin, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812)

Shalott, Lady of (Poem, Arthurian, Tennyson, 1833) Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (1888); “I am Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1915) Crane, The Lady of Shalott (1862)

Sleeping Beauty (folk tale, Europe, Brothers Grimm and others) Collier, The Sleeping Beauty (1921)

Snow White (folk tale, Europe) Rego, Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995)

Tancred and Erminia – see Rinaldo and Armida

Tristan and Isolde (Arthurian legend, Persian origin) Waterhouse, Tristan and Isolde (1916)

Yellow Rose of Texas (folk song, USA) Wright, The Yellow Rose of Texas (2008)

This is an index of the 8 well-known stories and narratives from post-classical history which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Chilperic I, murder (French history, 584) Luminais, The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Marat, assassination (French history, 1793) David, Marat Assassinated (1793)

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Execution (French history, 1867) Manet, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Medusa, The Raft of the (French history, 1816) Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-9)

Ney, Marshall Michel, Death (French history, 1815) Gérôme, The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

If ever there was a life described in self-portraits, Rembrandt’s was. You can see the effects of age and his many troubles, his bankruptcy, difficulties with ‘the powers that be’, and the pressures put on Hendrickje Stoffels, his partner in later years. Despite that toll, perhaps because of it, his painting just got better and better.

The one painting from his final years which has had a more mixed reception, but which I think remains one of his most brilliant narrative works, is his Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2). If you were fortunate enough to see it on tour in the exhibition Rembrandt, the Late Works, or in its home at Stockholm’s Nationalmuseum, I hope that you agree.

Narrative

The mighty Roman Empire consisted of a myriad of small tribes scattered throughout its lands. One such tribe was the Batavi, a warlike group of no more than about 35,000 people living in swamp land in the Rhine delta roughly where the southern part of the the Netherlands is today. Its capital was near modern Nijmegen. They had negotiated a good deal in the Empire: rather than pay direct taxes on their lands, like most tribes, they supplied the Roman army with around 5,000 men, many of whom served in the elite regiment of the German Bodyguards.

Their leader at this time was Gaius Julius Civilis, who had a quarter of a century of military service behind him, in the course of which he had lost one eye. In the late 60s CE, the Batavi had become disaffected with Rome. Civilis and his brother were arrested and charged with treason by the emperor Nero, but while Civilis was awaiting trial, Nero was overthrown and then committed suicide. His successor, Galba, acquitted Civilis and allowed him to return to the Batavi, where he was arrested again on the orders of the local Roman governor.

Rome then went through its own crises, with coups and political upheavals, and Batavi military support was suddenly needed. Civilis was released to help the cause, but the disaffection of the Batavi deepened. With civil war raging in the Empire in 69 CE, Civilis led a revolt against the Romans, besieging a camp containing 5,000 Roman legionaries. The following year the Batavi appeared to be gaining the upper hand, but the Romans brought more substantial military forces to bear, and the Batavi made peace again.

This chapter in the history of the Roman Empire is detailed by Tacitus, in The Histories, book 4. Although known in Tacitus’ account as Gaius Julius Civilis, in art history he has become known as Claudius Civilis. The revolt started when Civilis gathered the tribal chiefs and military leaders at “one of the sacred groves”, for a banquet. There he convinced them to join in the rebellion, binding then “with barbarous rites and strange forms of oath”, according to Tacitus.

The Late Rembrandt, Light, and Narrative

Rembrandt had long been well aware of the role of light in bringing intensity to narrative, for example in his Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638).

But in these late years, he was exploring lighting effects even more deeply, as shown in his Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther (1660).

This – another banquet scene but on a completely different scale – was taken from an Old Testament story from the book of Esther, via the contemporary play Hester by Johannes Serwouters, first performed in 1659. The original narrative revolved around Haman, one of King Ahasuerus’ officials, who proposed to hang Mordechai as a scapegoat for the Jewish nation, as revenge for their pride. In this painting, Haman is shown in the shadows on the left, with King Ahasuerus in the centre, and Esther – Mordechai’s cousin and Ahasuerus’s wife – radiant in her intervention to save Mordechai’s life.

Rembrandt thus used light as a tool to help his narrative.

Sadly the painting we see today as Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2) is not only much smaller than the original (see below), but its colours are far weaker. A slightly better impression may be gained from the detail shown below, which gives stronger clues as to the blue areas on Civilis’ crown and regal garments.

Rembrandt shows us a lofty king of his people, dressed in finery, his lost eye witness to his bravery and experience. His tribal chiefs join their swords and hands with his sword, in an oath to which they will be bound unto death, if necessary. The light, apparently from a source on the table and carefully hidden behind the foreground figures, heightens the moment and its meaning.

There was little scope for the use of facial expression here, which has (with a single exception at the far right) to be earnest. But the body language, swords, and light between them make this a moment of true peripeteia, a turning point for the Batavian nation – well, albeit a small tribe, but who would have thought that this great king was leader of just 35,000?

Marks in History

Life, even the life of Rembrandt’s paintings, is seldom so simple, though.

Rembrandt’s painting was commissioned for what was then the new Amsterdam City Hall, completed in 1655, which is now the Royal Palace. The dozen large spaces intended for paintings were going to be filled by Govert Flinck (1615–1660), who had started but not completed them when he died in 1660.

Rembrandt was commissioned to paint his version for the City Hall in 1661, and sketched what he is believed to have completed in the summer of 1662.

The painting which we see today is but a small central rectangle within the original. The whole painting was hung in place for a while, but it appears that it fell into disfavour. It was taken down and returned to Rembrandt. He no longer had sufficient influence to change anyone’s mind in the matter. Meanwhile Jürgen Ovens (1623–1678) completed Flinck’s version of The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis shown below, which was hung instead of Rembrandt’s.

Rembrandt was desperately short of money at this time, and was never paid for the original commission. He therefore cut the painting down to a more saleable size, repainted parts of it, and sold it on. A hundred years later, it had made its way to Sweden, and by 1782 had come into the possession of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. In 1864 it was transferred to the Nationalmuseum, where you can see it today.

The Batavi, or Batavians, became a founding element of the nation which developed in the Netherlands, even though their greatest depiction had been sent away and cut up. As the Dutch East Indies developed and made the Netherlands rich from trade, its capital was named Batavia (now Jakarta). During the French Revolution, the Netherlands itself became the Batavian Republic (1795-1806). But the greatest painting of Civilis and the original Batavian chiefs was already in Sweden.

Conclusions

In his later years in particular, Rembrandt’s explorations of light in narrative paintings demonstrated how the artist’s choices can add considerably to the narrative. In Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther he used lighting to develop his characters and their roles; in The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis to transform a renegade tribal chieftain into the founder of a nation.

References

Wikipedia on this painting
Wikipedia on Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther

Bikker J et al. (2014) Rembrandt, the Late Works, Yale UP. ISBN 978 1 8570 9557 9.

Stories – narratives, if you prefer a little more pretence – are so ubiquitous that we are seldom conscious of them. Even when we go to sleep, in our dreams our minds weave often vivid narrative experiences in our inner world.

Until a couple of centuries ago, the ways we had of telling our stories were limited, and had only changed gradually over the millenia. At first, we had oral stories: whatever anyone might claim, undoubtedly one of the main purposes for the development of human language. We then started to illustrate these with paintings, as seen in caves around the world. Next we invented ways of writing our speech down, and recording stories which could be passed on verbatim.

The world’s great religions accumulated first oral then written compilations of stories, describing how the world and humans came about, tracing tribal histories, and those of prophets and God.

Painting developed into fine art, providing the only manmade images that people saw. Our ancestors were able to read the stories in such paintings even though most could not read their own written language. Printing presses made it possible for increasing numbers to have their own images and written stories, and mass media started to flourish.

A couple of hundred years ago, the pace of change increased markedly as a result of technology. First, still photography made it possible for anyone to have an image made of themselves, and to see images of people and events, without the intermediary of a painter. Then came movies and the cinema, radio, television, and most recently of all, computers and electronic games – each spreading more elaborate storytelling to more and more people.

Whether or not the first consumer virtual reality (VR) headsets now being sold by Oculus mark the ‘year of VR’, they are another milestone in our obsession with the story. The games and other narratives which Oculus users will immerse themselves in have finally become almost completely real.

But what is fascinating about all these different means of telling stories is that the new have not replaced the old. We still tell one another stories just as much as our illiterate ancestors did. Far from killing written stories and books, new technologies have enabled them to proliferate. When we go on holiday, we don’t just take a couple of reading books, but Kindles and iPads packed with many titles. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels made their movies a great success, which in turn promoted book sales. JRR Tolkien’s wonderful synthetic myths became far more widely-read once more people had seen the movies.

One reason for the continuing popularity of more traditional means of storytelling is their lack of explicitness, and reliance on the imagination. Many of those who read the book and watch the movie choose to return to the book, because only there can they create their own mental imagery of the story. This was amply demonstrated by Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast on radio, then turned into books, and only latterly – and least successfully – into TV series and then a movie.

VR has the huge disadvantage in that it replaces almost all imagination with explicit sensory input. Those weaving stories for VR systems are going to have to work hard to keep the imagination active, or VR risks turning into nothing more than a passing theme-park experience with the transience of memes. It is encouraging that there is so much research taking place in narrative for computer gaming and VR.

The one narrative medium which remains an endangered species is painting. The popular neglect of narrative painting which developed during the nineteenth century was followed by an orgy of self-destruction, in the hands of over-influential critics and art for the art industry’s sake, during the twentieth century. It brought painting to the brink of total collapse as an art, which thankfully is now being reversed. One reason for my intensive series of articles here about narrative in painting is my belief that, without thriving and healthy narrative genres in painting, few people will enjoy contemporary painting as much as they do the paintings of the past.

We have reached an exciting chapter in the story of narrative. I can’t wait to turn the page.

Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880) was the son of a famous archaeologist, and trained at the Düsseldorf, Munich, and Antwerp academies before becoming a pupil of the now-infamous Thomas Couture in Paris, at the time that the French Impressionists were also learning to paint.

In contrast to the nascent Impressionists, Feuerbach was a painter of history and mythology in true Salon style: highly finished, and with the aura of complete authenticity. But look below the paint surface, and things were a little different.

The Death of Author Pietro Aretino (1854)

The Italian author Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) is probably as obscure now as is Anselm Feuerbach, and he makes a strange character for a narrative painting. In his day, he was a great influence on art and politics, and Titian painted his portrait at least three times. An overt homosexual (or, more accurately, promiscuous bisexual), he quickly brought offence when in Rome by writing and publishing sixteen pornographic sonnets to accompany a series of equally pornographic drawings by Marcantonio Raimondi.

Fleeing to Venice, he there became a very successful blackmailer, as well as developing his sharply satirical writing. As you might expect, his mode of death was as strange as his mode of life: he was said to have died of suffocation “from laughing too much”.

Feuerbach shows the exterior of an Italian villa with a wild party in full swing. In the background, a couple are making love, oblivious of what is taking place in front of them. Aretino appears to have fallen onto his back on the stone flooring, his right hand still gripping the tablecloth and bringing plates, food, and a glass toppling down on him. Next to him on the stone is a stringed musical instrument, and a small dog.

At the left, a man appears to be trying to reach Aretino, but is struggling to do so, perhaps through drunkenness, his left hand clutching the edge of the table. Around that table are three beautiful young women, who appear mildly amused at Aretino’s predicament, or are ignoring him. In the right background a man appears to be passing his empty goblet up to a black servant for refilling.

The painting is a puzzle. Why Feuerbach should have any interest in such an event is a mystery, and why he should portray it in such a curious painting is unclear. As narrative, it begs many questions and answers none.

Medea (1870)

We seem on safer, certainly better-trodden, ground with Medea, from Greek mythology. The sorceress daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, she was part of the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece (and the Argonauts), which has very ancient origins. Inevitably there are different versions, but the basic story is that Medea fell in love with Jason, and – on the condition of their marriage on his return – helped him obtain the Golden Fleece.

The most famously developed account of Medea and Jason is that in Euripides’ play Medea. According to that, Medea had two children by Jason, Mermeros and Pheres. Later Creon, the King of Corinth, offered Jason his daughter Glauce in marriage. When Jason left Medea for Glauce, Medea avenged his betrayal by killing their two children.

An alternative and happier ending is that Jason and Medea fled to Corinth, where they had five sons and a daughter.

When Feuerbach decided to paint Medea, he may have already seen Moreau’s Jason (1865), which I discussed here. He decided to paint something approaching its antithesis.

For Feuerbach, Medea is the mother of their two young children, watching as Jason and his Argonauts push their boat back into the surf to go in quest of the Golden Fleece. Presumably the woman in black is mother or mother-in-law. Medea appears almost an archetypal mother, a Madonna and infant plus one, not even looking at the departing boat. She is no sorceress, and the merest suggestion that she could ever kill those children in vengeance seems absurd.

So this too is a puzzle.

The Battle of the Amazons (1873)

The Attic War, again in Greek mythology, was a conflict between the famous female warrior Amazons and the Athenians of Greece. The dead queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, had a sister, Antiope, who was abducted by Theseus, leader of the Athenians, during the ninth labour of Heracles/Hercules. The Amazons not only wanted to rescue Antiope, but to bring back the Hippolyte Belt, which Heracles had won in that ninth labour.

Despite their reputation as fierce warriors, the Amazons were annihilated in battle, as the Athenians spooked their horses, who went wild, throwing their riders and then killing them. This had previously been depicted in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the earliest of which, The Battle of the Amazons (c 1600), is below.

Feuerbach’s second version of his painting appears to follow Rubens more closely.

Remarkably, amid the complete chaos, there are no signs of carnage: neither Rubens nor Feuerbach show any blood (apart from the occasional sliver on a dagger) amid the acres of bare female flesh.

Plato’s Symposium

Although known as Plato’s Symposium, after the philosophical drinking party described by Plato in 385-370 BCE, the event is perhaps better described as Agathon’s party. For Plato set his philosophical debate at a party thrown by Agathon in 416 BCE to celebrate his first victory in a dramatic competition, the Dionysia. The debate was used by Plato to expound various theories of (predominantly male homosexual) love.

The participants include Phaedrus (an aristocrat who followed Socrates), Pausanias (a legal expert), Eryximachus (a physician), Aristophanes (the famous comic playwright), Agathon (a tragic poet and the host), Socrates (the philosopher, and teacher of Plato), and Alcibiades (a statesman and orator).

Feuerbach may have seen a print made from Pietro Testa’s (1611–1650) painting The Symposium of Plato (before 1648).

Testa shows the seven participants engaged in debate around a table, a naked youth nearby, and a courtyard with statuary behind.

Feuerbach initially made a watercolour sketch of his intended painting in 1865-6, and completed his first version of Plato’s Symposium in oils in 1869. I am indebted to Professor J H Lesher for decoding the identity of the figures.

Entering from the left down the short flight of steps, almost naked, is the drunken statesman and orator Alcibiades, shown as a homoerotically-charged young man. His right arm is cast around a partially unclad female companion, and he brings with him a group of revellers, including another partially undressed woman with a tambourine. Alcibiades himself is framed by a pair of putti, the nearer with a wreath, the other with a double flute.

Standing in the centre, Agathon welcomes the group, and wears the laurel crown of his victory. Around him, to the right, are the other figures of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Aristodemus, and Socrates, perhaps Plato too. With very few clues as to which might be which, Feuerbach does not seem to want us to identify them individually. Behind Agathon there is an opening to a courtyard garden, not dissimlar to that of Testa, but without the statuary.

Detailed analyses of the paintings shown on the walls, and comparisons with Plato’s text, reveal that Feuerbach did not attempt to conform to the text, but did try to create an image which appeared convincing. So we have what looks like a careful representation of Plato’s Symposium, but which is actually not. Although it may share some narrative, Feuerbach has other intentions, which remain unclear.

This first version of what Feuerbach considered his masterwork was not well received. He therefore developed a second version (third if you count the watercolour sketch of 1865-6), which was completed in 1874.

Feuerbach’s second Plato’s Symposium (1871-4) has undergone a pictorial transformation, but consists of the same figures in essentially the same locations and relations. Other than Alcibiades and his group and Agathon, there are as few clues as to the identities of the other figures. The walls are now decorated differently, and the distant garden has changed too. But far from clarifying his narrative intent, it remains locked in the artist’s mind.

Conclusions

Feuerbach’s narrative paintings are even more puzzling than those of Moreau, where at least we know that all we have to do is to decode their symbols and read those. Feuerbach provides us with paintings which, at first sight, depict well-known narratives. But look more carefully and each has problems in the reading. Perhaps that was his point.

References

Wikipedia on Feuerbach
Wikipedia on Plato’s Symposium
Wikipedia on Pietro Aretino

Lesher, JH (2008) “Feuerbach’s Das Gastmahl des Platon and Plato’s Symposium” in P. Castillo, S. Knippschild, M. G. Morcillo, and C. Herreros, eds., International Conference: Imagines: The reception of antiquity in performing and visual arts (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 2008), 479–490. Available here.

“The Spirit of Indian Painting. Close Encounters with 101 Great Works 1100-1900”
B N Goswamy
Thames & Hudson, February 2016 (UK); August 2016 (US)
Hardback, 24.1 x 18.8 cm (9.5 x 7.3 in), 12+570 pp., £29.95/$50.00
ISBN 978 0 500 23950 6
Not available for Kindle, nor in the iTunes Store.

Perhaps, like me, you have long been fascinated by paintings from the Indian sub-continent, but have been afraid to ask for more understanding. If so, this book is aimed at you (and me).

The smattering of information which I had gained was bewildering. In the one admittedly large area, there seemed to have been so many very different schools of painting, styles and periods, that trying to make any sense out of it was too difficult. I felt that I needed a guide: someone with sufficient experience, real wisdom, and insight, to get me started.

If anyone might fulfil that role, B N Goswamy should. Probably the foremost scholar of Indian painting in the world, he has extensive experience of bringing the works which he knows so well to a wide range of audiences, including those in the USA and Europe. This book was first published in India in 2014, and has apparently already proved a great success in its home market.

The book is divided into two main sections: in the first 120 pages or so, Goswamy introduces the reader to the subject, following which each of 101 carefully chosen Great Works is illustrated, described, and discussed. In practical terms, I think most readers will find it best to read the introductory section at a single sitting, digest it a little, then dip into the great works whenever they have a moment.

The opening essay, titled A Layered World, is a delightful read, and full of the insight which you would hope of such an expert. He establishes at the outset that he aims to help the reader learn how to read an Indian painting, and explains that using an example of a fourteenth century bronze sculpture before taking us through some paintings.

Goswamy brings each topic to life with a series of delightful stories from the history of Indian painting, which here lead into a discussion of the key concept of rasa: a difficult concept which he explains clearly before considering the nine well-known rasas, and moves on to explain accepted conventions about representation, perspective, and the like.

The difficulty when dealing with so many different schools and styles, such as Mughal and Rajasthani, is to avoid giving an account which is fractured and confusing. Goswamy has the wisdom and mastery of his subject to treat each topic synthetically, so the reader comes away with clear concepts rather than misremembered lists of differences.

He next explains, and illustrates, the stylisation which is often so characteristic of Indian portraits, another valuable aid when looking at the paintings later. This is followed by a look at patrons, painters, and their techniques. Given the lack of knowledge of most of the painters themselves, he sums the situation up well in writing:
it is tempting to stand E H Gombrich’s famous dictum on its head – ‘There really is no such thing as Art; there are only artists’ – and say, of the art of India, that ‘There really are no artists; there is only art.’

He explains how the great majority of Indian paintings have become known as ‘miniatures’, in practice an inappropriate label for what were usually folios of paintings on paper which were intended to be read close, rather than hung on a wall and viewed from a distance. He then considers some of the practical issues about brushes and pigments, and provides a helpful composite image showing how an example painting was created in its different stages.

He concludes this essay with a lively summary of the major regional schools, styles, and periods, from the twelfth century up to the end of the nineteenth century. This contains mainly sparkling jewels of stories, set in his deep and broad insight.

The Great Works themselves are grouped by theme, into Visions, Observation, Passion, and Contemplation. Although to the Western mind accustomed to thinking in genres this might at first seem vague, it works well and I never found myself wondering why one painting was here rather than somewhere else.

Most paintings are covered in the course of four pages: the first shows the painting itself, the text is headed by the full details, with a brief introduction to orientate the reader, a careful textual description of the painting, and a guide to its reading. He concludes each with a short note, typically concerning artistic attribution of the work.

His choice is very broad: there are certainly many Mughal works, but all schools and styles appear well represented.

End matter consists of a superb 17 page glossary, compiled by the editorial team for the first Indian edition, four pages of recommendations for further reading, and an index. This is maybe not the most extensive index in the world, and it might have been nice to have had a classified chronological index to the paintings, but (for once) there is a proper index.

It would have been very helpful for many of the illustrations to have been larger, but that would have pushed the format up to ‘coffee table’ size, with a concomitant increase in price and reduction in portability. For most of the paintings this format is probably the best compromise, and ensures that you can read the book wherever you wish.

It might have been even better, perhaps, to have a website with high resolution images of the Great Works, but I understand the difficulties involved over rights to such images.

Opinion

B N Goswamy has written the perfect introduction to Indian painting, a difficult subject which he makes completely accessible and utterly absorbing. If you have even the slightest interest, buy it and I am sure that he will enthuse you for the subject.

Armed with Professor Goswamy’s wonderful new book, I thought it might be useful to take a brief look at a small selection of narrative paintings from the Indian sub-continent. In doing so, I acknowledge his guidance in reading those which he covers in his book.

The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza (c 1567-72)

The Hamzanama is an epic of the legendary (and almost entirely fictitious) exploits of Amir Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the finest versions of the Hamzanama is that made for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in about 1562, which Goswamy describes as “one of the most exciting, and extensive, manuscripts ever to be painted in India, and one of the key documents of Mughal painting.” (p 149.)

Sadly, as with so many of these manuscripts, the whole has been split up and different folios sold on, dispersing what remains around the globe. Many pages seem to have been lost: of the 1400 paintings believed to have been in the original 14 volumes, the location of only about 100 paintings is known at present.

Goswamy tells us that this painting comes from a few about a young prince, Nur-ud-dahr. One inscription tells of a demon throwing this prince into the sea, from which the Prophet Elias rescued him to an island.

This tale can be further reconstructed. Among the prince’s admirers was an ‘infidel’ girl who was told by a demon that the demon had kidnapped the prince one night, and had thrown him into the sea. The girl reported this to Umar, but the ‘crisis’ Prophet Ilyas (or Elias, or Elijah) had intervened and helped the prince to shore and safety.

The painting, commonly attributed to Mir Sayyid Ali and Miskin, but probably the work of Basawan, according to John Seyller, is exquisite. The Prophet is shown, his head distinctively surrounded by gold flames, walking on the waves and leading the prince to safety, towing him along by his scarf. The prince reaches up for the scarf with his right hand, a tiger-skin wrap around him.

Facial expressions are relatively neutral, although the prince appears to be smiling with relief. Body language is clear, the Prophet leading to the shore with his right hand, and looking back at the prince. The whole of the rest of the painting sets this in turbulent waters, with large fish and an alligator nearby. The safe haven ashore is shown in wonderful and lush detail, with peacocks and the rich foliage of trees.

Ibrahim Adil Shah (c 1590-95)

This painting comes from an album now in Saint Petersburg, and shows “one of the most gifted of the Sultans of the Deccani Kingdoms, Ibrahim Adil Shah.” Although more of a narrative portrait, showing its subject when he was not quite twenty years old, on a hawking expedition, it depicts action.

Ibrahim Adil Shah is shown on horseback, his hawk on his right hand as his horse gallops through a landscape of extraordinary beauty. Goswamy identifies the wildlife as including jackals, pheasants, and saras cranes.

The Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana (c 1765)

The Mahabharata is one of the two major epics of ancient India, and probably originates from the eighth or ninth centuries BCE. The Bhagavata Purana is one of the eighteen Maha (Great) Puranic texts of Hinduism, and most probably dates from the eighth to the tenth century CE. Stories about the Pandava brothers form part of the central theme of the Mahabharata, and appear sporadically in the Bhagavata Purana too.

There was a longstanding rivalry between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, known as the Kurukshetra War, although they were cousins. At one stage, the Pandavas had to leave Hastinapura and move to the city of Varanavartha/Varnavata. The Kauravas had a palace built there of highly inflammable materials, particularly lacquer (Lac), and planned to set fire to it in the night when the brothers were asleep in it.

Fortunately the Pandava brothers were warned to beware of the perils of fire, and dug a tunnel to provide themselves with a means of escape. One very dark and windy night, one of the Pandava brothers decided that he would pre-empt events. He gathered the brothers and their mother, and as they were fleeing through the tunnel, set the palace on fire himself. He did not realise that a woman and her five drunken sons were still in the house, and they perished.

The painting shows the entire palace in flames, those being fanned by the strong wind. Grey spirals of smoke are rising from the building too, and vague details of the structure can be seen in places. The dark starry night sky forms a contrasting background.

The Bhagavata Purana (c 1840)

More central to the later books of the Bhagavata Purana are accounts of the life of Krishna. This episode concerns a great battle which raged between Krishna and the demon-king Naraka. Here, mounted on the sun-bird Garuda, Krishna storms Naraka’s citadel. Eventually Krishna overcomes the demon and beheads him, and is then honoured by the Earth Goddess, mother of the slain Naraka.

This detail from a splendid double-page spread (which is shown complete in Goswamy’s book, p. 264) shows the blue-skinned representation of Krishna mounted on Garuda in several places. This illustrates a narrative technique which is not peculiar to Indian painting, but which died out after the Renaissance in Europe.

The citadel is shown on a circular island, surrounded by a moat and other protection, which forms no barrier to Krishna and Garuda.

The Ramayana of Valmiki (c 1597-1605)

The Ramayana is the other major epic of ancient India, and its earliest manuscripts date from the eleventh century CE, and possibly (most recently discovered) from the sixth century CE. Hanuman is a vanara of the kingdom of Kishkindha. Trisiras is the three-headed son of Tvashta, created by Tvashta to dethrone Indra. Although in other versions, Indra kills Trisiras, here it is Hanuman who cuts the triple heads off.

This painting shows Hanuman, his sword still in his right hand, holding the triple head of Trisiras with his left hand. Attendants are gnawing Trisiras’ arms off.

Shakuntala, from The Mahabharata (late nineteenth century)

Shakuntala was the wife of Dushyanta and mother of Emperor Bharata. Her story appears in the Mahabharata, and has been retold by others and in several plays. As is usual with legends, there are many variants, and I show here two relatively recent oil paintings by Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) which depict events in the story.

This shows Shakuntala’s father, Vishwamitra, refusing to accept her from her mother, Menaka, soon after birth. Although there is good use made of facial expressions, most prominent is the body language in the form of arm and hand gestures (mudrā) which are formalised in dance and the theatre.

This shows the traditional opening episode in the central legend, in which Shakuntala is walking through the forest, when she looks back. King Dushyanta has been travelling through the same forest with his army, and was pursuing a wounded male deer. Shakuntala and Dushyanta see one another and fall in love, and get married.

Raja Ravi Varma follows convention in his use of facial expression, body language, and the pictorial cues and clues.

Urvashi and Pururavas (late nineteenth century)

My final painting, again in oils by Raja Ravi Varma, shows the legend of Urvashi and Pururavas.

Urvashi is an Apsara or nymph, a celestial maiden in Indra’s court, and the most beautiful of all the Apsaras. She became the wife of King Pururavas. They met when Urvashi was returning to heaven after completing an earthly task, and was abducted by a demon. Pururavas saw this, gave chase in his chariot, and freed Urvashi.

Raja Ravi Varma does not use facial expression much, but tells his narrative mainly using body language. My main reason for including this painting here is its relaxed use of perspective: in comparison with a European painting of similar age, it does not conform to a geometrically ‘correct’ perspective projection. Nevertheless, it does not look out of kilter, and does possess depth.

Conclusions

The most difficult question to answer in most of these examples is whether the paintings that we see now were intended to illustrate the text which they accompanied, or were to be read as standalone works. The fact that history has fragmented their original texts to the point where you cannot any longer read them as integrals indicates that – whatever the original intent – they do work well as standalone paintings.

The narrative techniques shown in them are generally in accordance with European paintings. Two significant differences are the use of multiple images of the same people within a single pictorial frame, as shown above, and the more formal language of gesture shared with other Indian arts.

I doubt whether any of the earlier Indian painters had any knowledge of Alberti’s principles for narrative painting, but they appear to have developed their own equivalents. Narrative painting employs a more universal language than written or spoken narrative.

References

Wikipedia on the Hamzanama
Wikipedia on the Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia on Shakuntala
Wikipedia on Ramayana
English translation of Sacontalá.

Goswamy BN (2016) The Spirit of Indian Painting. Close Encounters with 101 Great Works 1100-1900, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 23950 6.

In the next few days, there should be an announcement of the ‘discovery’ of a new member of the Impressionists, from the two institutions which have painstakingly pieced together his works, biography, and their documentary archives, largely from the Mouton-Rothschild Collection. I am delighted to be able to bring you a little preview, to celebrate his birthday, today, the first of April.

Huw Wystan Jones (1820-1888) was born in the Welsh fishing village of Llareggub, on the west coast of Wales, over a century before it was made famous in Dylan Thomas’s play Under Milk Wood. He studied painting first at the Swansea Art School, where he learned to paint in watercolours and oils, but in the Spring of 1839 left prematurely and made his way to Paris. Failing to gain entry to the Académie des Beaux-Arts there, he worked in Delacroix’s studio, developing his technique and skills.

His early paintings, at least those that have survived, were strictly realist and in Salon style. However his motifs were unusual, and he quickly showed a preference for painting sheep in rural settings. From about 1850 he often travelled to paint in Normandy, and later in Brittany too, where he met the young Eugène Boudin.

Jones soon discovered a practical problem with painting sheep: it was not wise to bring them into a studio. He was therefore driven to paint almost entirely en plein air, and it was he who inspired Boudin to do the same.

Early works such as A Sheep Market in Normandy (1850) show clear influence of the Barbizon School, although he does not appear to have frequented sites around Fontainebleau where others tended to gather and paint.

During the 1850s these paintings started to explore the effects of light more, and their facture became steadily rougher, anticipating the changes which were to be seen in Monet and Renoir a decade later. It was Jones who first introduced Monet to Boudin in 1857, and helped persuade the young Monet to paint landscapes.

Jones was bitterly disappointed when his exceptional On the Way to Market (1859) was refused by the Salon jury in 1859, and Boudin’s entry was accepted, but Boudin and Monet were able to rebuild his confidence so that he could resume painting the following year.

Sadly few of his works from the 1860s seem to have survived, as he had to abandon them in France when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870. He returned to his family in Wales, where he concentrated on studies in which he tried to capture the optical properties of the fleece of the local Cardiganshire sheep, whose wool is so distinctive as to have been the origin of the name of the knitted ‘cardigan’ jacket.

Working initially in watercolour, he made little headway. When he changed to oils, though, he realised that the solution was to break his brushstrokes up into ever finer marks.

His first finished painting using this technique, which he termed pointillage, was The Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep (1872). Still smarting from his previous experience with the Salon jury, he submitted this to the Royal Academy in London, who rejected it.

This time Jones did not stop painting, but pressed on, convinced of eventual success. His A Flock of Sheep was sent to the Royal Academy the following year, and was also rejected.

Jones’ last painting which remains is his Landscape with a Flock of Sheep (1875), completed too late for the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874, and once again rejected by the Royal Academy. However by this time he was living on the Boulevard de Magenta, had met the Seurat family, and befriended their son Georges, who was just starting his training at the local École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin. Re-examination of Seurat’s papers has confirmed that it was Jones who was actually the father of Neo-Impressionism.

When Seurat started to develop Neo-Impressionism in the early 1880s, it was too late for Jones. He returned to the village of his birth in 1877, and made a comfortable living painting local views in watercolours for the gentry and early tourists. He returned to Paris in the Spring of 1886 – just 130 years ago – to see Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-6) on display, and two years later died in a freak farming accident, when a flock of sheep ran out of control during a storm.

What day could be more appropriate to celebrate the newly-discovered influence of the Welsh Impressionist?

Spouf, now spelled spoof, was originally a card game invented by Arthur Roberts (1852-1933), a noted comedian. It is now, of course, used to mean an act of trickery or hoaxing, and its verbal form is used for such action.

Roberts’ game was first invented at the Adelphi Club in London, but seems to have disappeared without trace. Two subsequent games have also been named Spoof, the next a commercial card game published in 1918 by Milton Bradley, and then in more recent years a drinking (bar) game involving three coins, hence known as Three Coin.

This modern version of Spoof has a World Championship – the last winner being Geoff Walker, a member of the Gentlemen Spoofers of Bangkok.

Each player has 3 coins, and decides how many, 0 to 3, to hold in a closed hand. The guesser has the task of guessing the total number of coins held by the other players. Play proceeds clockwise around the group, each person venturing a guess in turn. No two players can give the same guess. Once all the players have guessed, they all open their hands and the total is worked out. The player who made the correct guess is them eliminated, and so it proceeds. The last remaining player pays the stake to each other player.

The OED records the first written use of spoof in 1884, by which time it was already being used to describe hoaxing or humbugging more generally. It was also used as a verb very quickly, by 1889. The Spoofery or Spooferies came to signify a low sporting club, or more specifically the Adelphi Club itself, a usage which appears to have faded in the early 20th century, when spoofery came to mean the act of trickery or hoaxing.

Hoax is a more curious word, which initially might appear to have Greek origins. It was first recorded in 1796, and is thought to be a contraction from the word hocus; it too was quickly used as both noun and verb.

Hocus is a term used for all sorts of trickery and deception from about 1640 onwards, and was shortened from hocus pocus, which appeared in the early 1600s as a name for a juggler, perhaps more the equivalent of a modern magician. This was derived from a sham Latin formula commonly used by jugglers, and appears in Grimm as hokuspokus. There have been claims that it was a parody of the Latin used in Christian Eucharist services, but that was from a single suggestion which has not gained any further support.

Spoofs and hoaxes are all the rage on the first day of April, of course: the day originally known as April-fool-day (first recorded in 1687), for an ancient custom which is widespread across Europe and North America.

But why the first of April?

The first day of April traditionally marks the start of the northern hemisphere Spring, which always used to be the New Year before someone mean moved it to the middle of winter. It was at the start of the year that new squires assumed their role, for which they were termed April-esquires. One of the first things which people did to April-esquires was to send them on fools’ errands, or April-fools.

In the north of England, April-fools were called April-gowks in the 1700s, and probably until much more recent times.

Fools’ errands, spoofs, and hoaxes like April-fools remain widespread in close-knit occupational groups such as the Armed Forces and sailors. The combination – such as the Royal Navy – is rich with them. When they join their first warship, young seamen are assigned tasks such as finding the golden rivet, which is supposedly the final rivet which commemorates the ship’s completion, and of course does not exist. They are also sent to get themselves on a splash target coxswain’s course: splash targets are disposable objects towed for use as target practice, and a coxswain of a splash target would have to be on it to ‘steer’ it whilst it was towed – another wonderful spoof.

I am, of course, feeling a little sheepish today about yesterday’s article, Huw Wystan Jones: the Welsh Impressionist. It was completely and utterly false, a spoof for the First of April.

In case you missed any, here are the clues which I gave:

• Huw Wystan – a play on Wystan Hugh Auden, WH Auden’s name
• the Mouton-Rothschild Collection – does not exist, Château Mouton Rothschild is a famous wine estate, and mouton means sheep;
• today, the first of April – just in case you had forgotten;
• Llareggub – a fictional place invented by Dylan Thomas, which is bugger all backwards;
• Swansea Art School – what is now Swansea College of Art was not founded until 1853;
• Boudin inspired to paint en plein air – that was by Johan Jongkind;
• Introducing Monet to Boudin in 1857 – they met directly;
• encouraging Monet to paint landscapes – that was Boudin;
• origin of the word cardigan for a wool jacket – that was James Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan, in the Crimean War;
• pointillage – actually means a type of massage using the tips of the fingers;
• father of Neo-Impressionism – that was Georges Seurat, who did live on the Boulevarde de Magenta, and attended the local École Municipale de Sculpture et Dessin;
• What day could be more appropriate to celebrate the newly-discovered influence of the Welsh Impressionist? – indeed.

I would also like to apologise to Constant Troyon (1810–1865), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), and Anton Mauve (1838–1888), whose paintings I deliberately misappropriated and attributed incorrectly. For the record, the following are the correct paintings with the correct attributions. I also blurred some of the signatures to hide them: these images are unadulterated in any way.

One interesting discovery which I made in the course of preparing my little spoof was how uncommon sheep are in nineteenth century paintings. With the exception of the wonderful specialist farm animal paintings by Troyon, and some more obviously recognisable works by the Macchiaioli, few artists seem to have depicted sheep much.

Perhaps today’s generation will flock to do so in the light of the fictional Huw Wystan Jones.

I hope that it brought you a little amusement.

… Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
(William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.)

Many artists have been but brief candles, whose light has been extinguished long before it should have: Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) promised to be greater even than JMW Turner, but died, probably of an asthma attack, at the age of just 27. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is now recognised as one of the most brilliant post-Impressionists, but died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of only 37.

This occasional series will focus on painters like Girtin who left sufficient for us to appreciate their talent, but whose work has largely been eclipsed by those who lived longer.

The first, subject of this and the next article, is Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828), who did not survive to his 26th birthday, but died very rapidly of pulmonary tuberculosis. Among those who paid tribute to his short life and brilliant work were Delacroix, Isabey, and Huet.

Bonington was born near Nottingham, England. His father had inherited the post of Nottinghamshire jailer in 1789, but before his son was born, father had abandoned that to be a drawing instructor and portrait painter, and had become a reasonably successful provincial artist. The early years of the nineteenth century were financially difficult, and father and mother saw their income falling, so decided to move to France. His father set up a lace factory in Calais in 1817, then moved to Paris the following year to establish a lace shop.

Bonington (the son) was first taught painting by his father, but was rescued from that by Louis Francia, who had recently returned from England. He also copied in the Louvre, and in 1819 enrolled in the atelier of Baron Gros at the Institut de France, the most prestigious in France at that time. Among his fellow students were Paul Delaroche, Robert-Fleury, and Charlet. Bonington and Gros did not get on well at first, but became reconciled over time.

Among his favourite views for watercolours were those of the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris from the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, and this View of the Pont des Arts from the Quai du Louvre (c 1819-20).

With these watercolour views of Paris selling quite well, Bonington toured Normandy in the autumn of 1821, returning via Rouen. During that he started to develop his interest in coastal landscapes, which were to remain central for the rest of his career. He started to exhibit in the Salon from 1822, and to produce illustrations for travel books published by his father and Ostervald, who also dealt in British paintings.

By 1823, Bonington’s watercolours had become very popular, with many being turned into prints, and were generating a healthy income for him and his parents. That year he toured north from Rouen along the coast to Calais and Flanders, then back to Paris via Amiens. Typical of the views which he painted then is this watercolour Near Honfleur (c 1823), although this does not appear to be turned into a print.

In early 1824, Bonington, in company with his colleague Colin, sketched and painted in Dunkerque and along the north coast again; although Colin returned earlier, Bonington did not get back to Paris until the early summer. Among the watercolour views which he painted around this time was Fishing Boats Aground (c 1823-4).

He was then working successfully in oils as well as watercolours, and in the summer of 1824 had two oils and a watercolour accepted for the Salon and sold for 500 francs each in advance. He was also awarded a gold medal at that Salon, alongside Constable and Copley Fielding, and Sir Thomas Lawrence was awarded the Legion of Honour. Bonington returned to Dunkerque and continued to paint.

It has been suggested that Bonington’s A Fishmarket near Boulogne (1824) was one of his paintings exhibited in the Salon in 1824, but Noon points out that this canvas was larger than any of Bonington’s listed for that Salon. It is, without doubt, one of his most significant early paintings, and probably one of the best of his brief career.

This detail view shows how loosely he handled many of the figures and objects, and the exaggerated aerial perspective which gives the work such depth.

Another early and successful oil painting, his Near Quillebeuf (c 1824-5) may have a little influence from Constable in the foreground, but otherwise shows similar style to A Fishmarket near Boulogne.

Fishing Vessels in a Choppy Sea (1825) was probably a watercolour copy of his A Sea Piece (c 1824), which may have been inspired by Turner’s marines. It was probably painted at Cap Blanc Nez off Wissant.

In May 1825, Bonington and Colin visited London, where they met up with Delacroix. There they studied public and private collections, and enjoyed many visits to the theatre.

Bonington’s Beached Vessels and a Wagon near Trouville (c 1825) may have been painted when he visited Trouville with Eugène Isabey after their return from England in the summer of 1825. Some have suggested that the wagon is another influence from Constable, but Noon points out that such vehicles were commonly used around the coast, and appear in other paintings by Bonington.

In the Forest at Fontainebleau (c 1825) was probably painted after his visit to London, and together with a related graphite sketch, is the only evidence for Bonington having visited Fontainebleau. The rocks are shown in a particularly painterly way, suggesting that it may have been started (if not completed) en plein air.

On the Coast of Picardy (c 1825-6) shows the Channel coast, probably just north of Le Havre, an area which was to prove popular later with JMW Turner and later still the Impressionists.

Bonington does not appear to have painted many woodland landscapes, but his A Wooded Lane (c 1825) was probably influenced by Paul Huet, with whom Bonington travelled around Rouen and Mantes in the autumn of 1825, rather than Constable.

Bonington’s finest painting of woodland is undoubtedly his Near Rouen (c 1825) from that same campaign with Huet. Showing Rouen in the distance, it appears to have been a plein air oil sketch, with particular emphasis on development of the trees, which pop out in their detail from the loosely roughed-in sky.

Barges on a River (c 1825-6) was probably painted during that trip too, in the vicinity of Mantes. The windmill seen behind the trees helps make this reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting.

The next article will cover the last three years of Bonington’s paintings.

References

Biography by Bruce MacEvoy
Wikipedia short article

Noon P (2008) Richard Parkes Bonington, The Complete Paintings, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 13421 6. Note that numbers given after the year of each painting in the captions refer to Noon’s catalogue.

The first part of this two-article series on the short life of Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828) left him at the end of 1825, having established himself as a successful painter of watercolour landscapes, many of which were turned into prints, and of acclaimed oil paintings.

Early in 1826, Delacroix invited Bonington to share his Paris studio. Although there does not seem to have been a detailed study of Bonington’s influence over Delacroix, perhaps the best summary of Delacroix’s opinion is that of his own words:
I never tired of watching his marvellous grasp of effects and the facility of his execution; not that he was readily satisfied. On the contrary, he frequently redid completely finished passages which had appeared wonderful to us; but his talent was such that he instantly recovered with his brush new effects as charming as the first.
(Delacroix, Correspondence 4:287, letter of 30 November 1862, quoted in Noon p 41.)

Bonington continued to paint coastal views. Noon argues that his Les Salinières near Trouville (1826) was painted from memory in the autumn of 1826, recalling the tour with Huet the previous year, and after Bonington’s return from Italy to his own studio in Paris. The repoussoir trees at the left are delightfully painterly.

The Abbey St-Amand, Rouen (c 1827-8) is a rare late watercolour showing this dilapidated monastery near Rouen Cathedral. Noon suggests that Bonington may have painted it when he passed through Rouen on his way to London in 1827, or later from memory and sketches.

From 1825, Bonington had also started painting figurative works of history painting in earnest. Although it would turn out that he had little time to develop in this genre, he demonstrated that he was as technically competent with figures as he was with nature.

Noon reveals that Portia and Bassanio (c 1826) shows a scene from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (Act 3, scene 2), in which Bassanio has come to Portia’s palace at Belmont, to win her hand in marriage. To do this, he must choose the correct casket out of three containing gold, silver, and lead, of which the last contained the winning portrait of Portia. Here Portia’s maid Nerissa stands aside, and Bassanio, recognising his successful choice, seals the betrothal contract with a kiss.

The sentimental melancholy of The Use of Tears (1827) is tragically appropriate if not prescient. It shows a young woman in her sickbed, if not deathbed, a popular and commonly-experienced scene of the time.

It was Noon who proposed that this painting, Knight and Page (Goetz von Berlichingen) (c 1826), showed Goetz von Berlichingen from Goethe’s Sturm and Drang tragedy of that name. He was a German warlord who struggled irrationally to defend his feudal lifestyle in the face of modern reform. Bonington probably painted this when he was sharing Delacroix’s studio in early 1826, and left it incomplete with Delacroix when he moved out.

In April 1826, Bonington left Paris with Charles Rivet and crossed the Alps via the Simplon Pass to Italy. After a few days rest in Milan, they pressed on to arrive in Venice later that month. Once in Venice, Bonington produced a large number of sketches and studies, some watercolours painted in front of the motif, and a few oil sketches on millboard which were at least started en plein air.

On the Grand Canal (1826) appears to be a brilliant plein air oil sketch painted from a boat, showing the entrance to the Grand Canal. Bonington has removed one of the palazzi, but otherwise appears faithful to the motif.

The Grand Canal Looking Toward the Rialto (1826), also on millboard, may have been started en plein air, but appears to have been completed later in the studio, when back in Paris, which may account for the difference in hues in the sky.

Bonington and Rivet left Venice on 18 May, visited Padua, Florence, and Pisa, and Bonington then returned alone via Switzerland in June. Once back in Paris, Bonington moved to his own studio, while remaining on very good terms with Delacroix, who considered that the visit to Italy had produced changes in Bonington’s style.

In the late Spring and early summer of 1827, Bonington went to London to develop his links with the art trade there. The later months of the year were extremely busy for him, preparing for a much-delayed Salon and other exhibitions. He was again very successful at the Salon which was eventually held in two parts during November 1827 and from February 1828, at which Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus was first shown. Sadly Bonington’s paintings from the second part of the Salon, with a single exception, have either vanished or become badly damaged.

Riva degli Schiavoni, from near S. Biagio (c 1827) shows the San Marco basin from the Arsenal traghetto. Although a small watercolour, Noon considers that it was painted well after Bonington’s return from Italy.

Ducal Palace with a Religious Procession (1827) was apparently painted in late 1827 for James Carpenter, from graphite studies which Bonington made during his visit in 1826. Painted on a white ground, it unfortunately underwent quite severe shrinkage, and was extensively retouched as a result. However, it was generally very well received at the time, despite the liberties taken with its representation of the view.

The Piazzetta, Venice (1827) shows the smaller Piazzetta which passes out from the Piazza San Marco. This too was painted in the studio from graphite sketches which he had made during his 1826 visit, and again takes various liberties with reality.

In February 1828, Bonington visited London again in time to see the two views of Venice above exhibited at the British Institution, then returned to Paris to recuperate from the hectic work of the winter, resuming various printmaking projects. In May he sent three oil paintings for the Royal Academy exhibition, encompassing his coastal views, Venice, and history.

Grand Canal, the Rialto in the Distance – Sunrise (1828) is another of Bonington’s finest oil paintings, made in the studio from graphite and other sketches from 1826. This painting has quite commonly been described as showing sunset, but as the view faces almost due east, must have been set in the early morning.

Bonington’s health was deteriorating during the early summer, and by the beginning of July he was physically incapacitated. He continued to sketch and paint from the back of cabs in Paris, but in September his parents had him moved to London for medical attention. He died there as a result of pulmonary tuberculosis – ‘King Death’ – on 23 September 1828, a month before he would have turned 26.

Although painted on millboard suggesting that it may have at least started as a plein air sketch, his Corso Sant’Anastasia, Verona (1828) contains a lot of very painterly detail which could not have been completed in a single session. It is also likely that the religious procession was a late addition, influenced by a Le Nain painting in the Louvre. Noon considers that this was “almost certainly the last picture Bonington painted before his final illness in July 1828.”

Comparisons

Here are some example oil paintings from other prominent artists of the same period as Bonington.

Although Constable’s sketches and studies were very loose and progressive, his finished paintings were much more traditional in style.

At this time, Corot, who was six years older than Bonington, was starting his plein air campaign in the Roman Campagna. His Ville-d’Avray: Entrance to the Wood (c 1825) makes an interesting comparison with Bonington’s A Wooded Lane (c 1825) shown in the first part of this series and repeated below.

JMW Turner was undergoing the transition from his more traditional oil paintings to that more typical of his later years.

Conclusions

In less than a decade of painting professionally, Bonington was amazingly prolific: Noon’s catalogue includes 400 watercolours and oil paintings, and there are undoubtedly many others which are still not known about or have been lost.

Bonington had a direct influence on Delacroix, and thereby indirectly on the Impressionists and the major changes which happened over the course of the latter half of the 1800s. His use of colour and light, his painterly brushwork, his development of coastal landscapes in Normandy, and of riverbank scenes in the Île de Paris, were important groundwork for the Impressionists.

Bonington’s scenes of the traditional fishing industry operating on beaches may even have influenced Eugène Boudin in his paintings on the Channel coast of France, and perhaps the much later watercolours of Winslow Homer at Cullercoats in England. It would seem to be a fruitful area for further work to examine Bonington’s influence.

References

Biography by Bruce MacEvoy
Wikipedia short article

Noon P (2008) Richard Parkes Bonington, The Complete Paintings, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 13421 6. Note that numbers given after the year of each painting in the captions refer to Noon’s catalogue.

Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830–1896) was a bastion of the arts establishment in the UK in the late nineteenth century, being the President of the Royal Academy from 1878 to 1896. He trained under the Austrian history painter Eduard von Steinle, Giovanni (Nino) Costa, a Roman member of the Macchiaioli, at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and then lived in Paris from 1855-1859.

Although Wikipedia claims that he won the coveted Prix de Rome, his name does not appear in the list of winners on Wikipedia, and elsewhere it is claimed that he won the award for sculpture rather than in painting, in 1889. However Wikipedia does not list him for sculpture either, although he was also an accomplished sculptor.

With the popularity of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, Leighton’s work was not just forgotten, but reviled for many decades. It is only in recent years that it has been re-evaluated and he is in the process of being ‘rehabilitated’. Whether or not you have a taste for his paintings, he was an extremely accomplished narrative painter, and his work merits examination in that context.

It is often not appreciated that Leighton did not simply turn out fashionable eye-candy such as his still hugely popular Flaming June (1896), but tackled a wide variety of genres and subjects. He painted many superb and very painterly plein air oil sketches around Europe, some huge murals, and even made a set of book illustrations for George Eliot’s historical novel Romola, which was first published in a 14-part series in Cornhill Magazine during 1862-3.

The Death of Brunelleschi (1852)

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was a central figure in the Southern Renaissance, an architect and civil engineer who is generally credited with developing the first geometrically correct perspective projection for use in 2D drawings and paintings. It was he who designed and supervised the construction of the brick dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence. He died there on 15 April 1446.

Leighton follows convention in locating Brunelleschi’s death in a building in Florence, whose window opens to a view of the dome of the cathedral. Brunelleschi is shown half-recumbent in extremis in a chair, as if flattened onto a two dimensional plane. The complex array of buildings seen between the window and the dome appear to defy correct perspective projection, but have in fact been carefully projected, and contrast with the flatness of the dying man.

Leighton, who painted this when he was in Italy, thus uses this simple story to discuss Brunelleschi’s perspective and its effects in painting in a visual manner.

The Feigned Death of Juliet (1856-8)

Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet (published 1597) explores the relationship between two lovers from families engaged in a long-standing feud, in Verona, Italy. After her secret marriage to Romeo, Juliet is promised in marriage to Count Paris, of the ruling house of Verona. The friar who performed their marriage offers her a potion which will put her into a deathlike coma for forty-two hours, which she takes in order to avoid her arranged marriage.

The play reaches a climax when Juliet is then discovered apparently dead, and her body is placed in the family crypt. However a messenger intended to inform Romeo of Juliet’s plan fails to reach Romeo in time. Learning of Juliet’s apparent death from his servant, Romeo buys poison, and goes to the crypt in which Juliet is laid out. Meeting her fiancé, the two men fight, and Romeo kills her fiancé before taking poison himself. When Juliet awakens from her coma, she sees Romeo dead, and stabs herself with his dagger. Following this triple death, the Capulet and Montague families make peace and end their feud.

Leighton shows Juliet apparently dead, laid out at home before she is moved to the crypt. She is surrounded by her immediate family, the Capulets, who are shown highlighted for emphasis. Lord and Lady Capulet are closest, with Juliet’s nurse behind. Count Paris is at the right, with Friar Laurence behind him. A queue of others leads into the background. The window reveals the two prominent towers of Verona, and at the back of the house preparations are still being made for Juliet’s wedding.

Facial expressions are of grief and anguish, with body language in support. Leighton’s use of lighting for emphasis is reminiscent of its use in narrative by Rembrandt, and seems particularly appropriate for a painting of a play. He also painted a scene showing the resolution of the plot, in which the feuding families are reconciled.

Winding the Skein (c 1878)

A woman is sat at the left, her hands outstretched to carry the little that remains of a skein of red wool. At the right is a young girl who is winding the wool from that skein into a ball. At her feet are four balls of wool which she has already wound. By the side of the woman, closer to the viewer, is a woven basket containing other skeins of wool in various colours. This takes place on the roof terrace of a house, behind which are distant bays and rocky scenery of the Bay of Lindos on the island of Rhodes, Greece.

No external narrative appears to be referenced by this painting, and it is easily read as just a pleasant view, a superficial confection. However, it contrasts its timeless air with an activity which is often used to fill in time with a purposeful but repetitive task. I think that Leighton also saw these references to the immediate passage of ‘momentary’ time against the much bigger scheme of ‘deep’ time, and how the days in our short lives measure up against the much slower progress of centuries and civilisations.

Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon (1868-9)

In Greek myth, Electra was the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. When her father was murdered by her mother and stepfather, on his return from the Trojan War, she and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against them. This plot originated when Orestes and Electra met at their father’s tomb, and was inspired by Electra’s face there. The story is told in detail in plays by Sophocles and Euripides, and she appears in many other plays.

Leighton shows Electra in funereal black, beside what appears to be a substantial mausoleum. She is in profound grief, her brows knitted, her eyes closed, their lids puffy from tears. Her arms are thrust up behind her head, where her hands are pressed against the top of her head, in a ritual gesture as if tearing her hair.

This is a classical approach using Alberti’s ‘laws’. Despite the angle of her face, its expression is unmistakeable, and her body language also very clear. This painting is unusual for not showing Orestes, and it may have been Leighton’s intent to put the viewer in his place.

Cymon and Iphigenia (1884)

The tale of Cymon, a young nobleman, and Iphigenia, a beautiful young woman, is one of the hundred novellas bundled into Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (1348-1353). Cymon had been an arrogant lout before he set eyes on Iphigenia. It is dusk on a warm May day, and she is sleeping in the woods with her servants and a dog. Cymon becomes a reformed character as a result, transforming into a perfect polymath.

Leighton shows Iphigenia, stretched out languidly in her sleep, in the last warm light of the day; behind her the full moon is just starting to rise. He has changed the season, though, for autumn, with the leaves already brown but the days still hot. Cymon stands in shadow on the right, idly scratching his left knee, gazing intently at Iphigenia.

Without knowing the original story, this is hard to read because so many of its cues and clues are non-specific. Apart from the change in season – which makes pictorial sense given the warm light of dusk – Leighton appears faithful to the original.

Captive Andromache (c 1886)

Andromache is also drawn from Greek myth, in particular the Iliad, and two plays (Andromache and The Trojan Women) by Euripides. She was born and raised in Cilician Thebe, where her father was ruler. She married Hector, the Trojan prince who was the greatest fighter for the city-state of Troy during the Trojan War, at which time they had an infant son. When Hector was killed by Greek Achilles and the city of Troy fell, she was taken into captivity as a concubine by Neoptolemus, who had killed her son. She eventually went to live with Pergamus in Pergamum, where she died in old age.

Andromache is shown, in black mourning clothes, in the centre of Leighton’s painting. She is queueing with many other women, presumably who were captured from Troy, to fill her vase with water from a well, shown at the right. Although others have children and appear to be clustered into groups, Andromache is stood in isolation, her head bowed in silent thought.

There are references to Nicolas Poussin’s famous depiction of women with vases at a well in his Eliezer and Rebecca, but here in very different circumstances. His composition, particularly the use of a nearby family group, use of body language and clothing, are very effective at making Andromache appear completely isolated despite her physical proximity to others.

Perseus and Andromeda (1891) and Perseus On Pegasus Hastening To the Rescue of Andromeda (c 1895-6)

This Greek myth tells of Andromeda, who was the beautiful daughter of the King and Queen of the North African kingdom of Aethiopia. Her mother, Cassiopeia, was so proud that she boasted that Andromeda was more beautiful than even the Nereids, who often accompanied Poseidon, the god of the sea. The latter decided to punish Cassiopeia for this arrogance, and sent Cetus, a sea monster, to ravage the coast of North Africa including Aethiopia.

The king was told by an oracle that the only way to be rid of Cetus was to sacrifice Andromeda to it. She was therefore stripped and chained to a rock on the coast, abandoned for Cetus to devour her. Perseus was just returning from killing the Gorgon Medusa when he chanced upon Andromeda in chains. Wearing Hades’ helm of darkness to render him invisible, Perseus killed Cetus, set Andromeda free, and married her. Various geographers of the day, including Strabo, considered that Andromeda had been chained up at Jaffa, modern Tel Aviv.

Leighton’s earlier painting shows the ‘invisible’ Perseus astride Pegasus, the winged stallion, shooting arrows into Cetus, while the monster surrounds Andromeda. Cetus is shown as a fairly conventional fire-breathing dragon, complete with stereotypical wings and a long tail. Andromeda is not naked, but some modesty is preserved by draping a white robe around her waist.

Similarities with the story of Roger rescuing Angelica as shown by Ingres and in Böcklin’s Roger Freeing Angelica (1873, 1879-80) are clear. Leighton’s Andromeda is too contorted to allow us to see her facial expression, which in view of Cetus’ position is unnecessary for a reading. That contortion does convey the clear message that she is affixed to the rock.

A few years later, Leighton made a separate painting of Perseus riding Pegasus, still holding the head of Medusa, which is remarkably similar to the inset image in Perseus and Andromeda.

And the Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were in It (1892)

The title of this painting is a quotation from the book of Revelation in the New Testament:
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
(Revelation Chapter 20, verse 13.)

Considered to be one of Leighton’s most dramatic paintings, it was first intended to decorate Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, but was rejected as being unsuitable. It was commissioned at reduced size by Henry Tate for his new gallery of British art, now The Tate Gallery in London.

Unlike much of the fearsome imagery of the Second Coming described in the book of Revelation, this is essentially an optimistic scene, being the resurrection and spiritual salvation of those who have died at sea – an all too common fate around the British coast. A central family group shows stages of awakening: the man has been fully awakened, his son is just starting to breathe but still white, and his wife still bears the pale green hue of the dead.

Around them, others are likewise being awoken from their coffins, presumably from burial at sea, or from the water itself. Leighton’s tones and colours probably refer to Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1819), by far the most famous painting of shipwreck and death at sea, which Leighton would have been very familiar with. There are also references to Michelangelo’s Entombment (1500-1), which was in the National Gallery and a favourite of Leighton’s at the time.

Conclusions

By and large, Leighton is eloquent in telling stories in these paintings. With his extensive classical training, he uses the basic tools laid down by Alberti very effectively, and augments them with the skillful use of light, perhaps developed from Rembrandt, adept composition, and many other cues and clues.

Other more static paintings by Leighton may well have deeper and narrative readings. I will return to the topic of time in narrative painting in a future article.

Leighton also researched his paintings exceptionally thoroughly. He was involved in the British Museum and frequently accessed its library and collections to provide material for narrative paintings. Although, as Barringer & Prettejohn point out, some of the concepts and decisions made may today appear inappropriate or anachronistic, this is more likely to be the result of changing knowledge rather than carelessness on Leighton’s part.

It is hard to see why his paintings are not more widely enjoyed today. Many of them tell engaging and topical stories exceedingly well.

References

Wikipedia

Barringer T & Prettejohn E eds (1999) Frederic Leighton: Antiquity, Renaissance, Modernity, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 07937 1.

This is an index of the 7 well-known stories and narratives of non-European origin which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Bhagavata Purana, Life of Krishna (Maha Puranic text of Hinduism) Krishna Storms the Citadel of Narakasura (S India, Mysore workshop, c 1840)

Bhagavata Purana, Pandavas (Maha Puranic text of Hinduism) The House of the Pandavas is Set on Fire (Pahari, c 1765)

Hamzanama, Amir Hamza (Mughal Indian epic) The Prophet Ilyas Rescues a Prince (Mughal, c 1567-72)

Ibrahim Adil Shah (Deccan Indian history) Farrukh Beg, Ibrahim Adil Shah Hawking (Deccan, Bijapur, c 1590-95)

Mahabharata, Shakuntala (Indian epic) Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), Birth of Sakunthala; Shakuntala looking back to glimpse Dushyanta

Ramayana of Valmiki, Hanuman and Trisiras (Mughal Indian epic) Shyam Sundar, Hanuman beheads Trisiras (Mughal, c 1597-1605)

Urvashi and Pururavas (Indian legend) Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), Urvashi and Pururavas (ഉർവ്വശിയും പുരൂരവസ്സും)

Much of the time, tutorials and demonstrations of sophisticated apps get bogged down in detail, and make the app look difficult to use. Very capable, yes, but equally daunting to the inexperienced user. This short and very simple tutorial should show you how easy it is to create visually attractive hypertext using Storyspace 3 – or beautiful notes using Tinderbox 6, as it transfers across directly too.

When I am writing articles for my blog, I am constantly thinking in terms of hypertext, and how I could better express my stories using Storyspace. Having just completed writing a brief account of the cruelly short life of the brilliant nineteenth century British painter Richard Parkes Bonington, I thought that it might be valuable to display his paintings in France on a Map view to illustrate where they depicted, as well as on a timeline. I was also aware that my previous explorations of the Map view had been quite limited.

My first task was to get a better understanding of the Map view and its co-ordinate system. This is made easy by the fact that Control-clicking (or its equivalent) at any location in that view displays a popup window, at the top of which are the co-ordinates of that location.

Any writing space can also reveal its location in the Map view by exposing the $Xpos and $Ypos attributes. To those you can also add $Width and $Height to see its current dimensions too.

Exploring the Map view using these basic tools shows that, by default, the top left corner is around (-23, -32.5), and the bottom right is around (36, 50). So if you are going to set $Xpos and $Ypos, and set the Map view up reasonably, it is good to constrain co-ordinates within a rectangle defined by (0, 0) at the top left, and (20, 30) at the bottom right, for example.

If you are putting small writing space tiles onto a Map with plenty of space between them, then you might want to create user attributes to contain their (decimal) latitude and longitude, then write a simple script to scale those into your visible rectangle. In my case, I knew that each writing space tile would need to be placed manually, and there was no benefit to setting $Xpos and $Ypos by script. In other circumstances, that could be a very neat approach.

So what I set out to do was – as simply and quickly as possibly – to create a Storyspace document in which Bonington’s limited output could be shown attractively on a map of the north east of France, and on a timeline.

Create a new writing space by double-clicking on the Map view of a fresh, empty document, name it painting, and expose the following key attributes: $Xpos, $Ypos, $Lock (all from Map), $StartDate and $EndDate (from Events). Then make it a prototype and tuck it away from the visible area of the Map view.

You next need a decent-sized image of the map area which is going to be used in the Map view. I made mine using a screenshot from Apple’s Maps, but if this is intended for commercial use, you will have to be very careful over copyright: most of the convenient mapping apps use protected data, and may need to be licensed for commercial purposes.

Drag and drop the JPEG image of your map onto the Map view, placing its top left corner around the (0, 0) origin. Open the window up to a good viewing size, then Shift-drag the lower right corner of the map adornment until it fills the Map view to the extent that you wish. Shift-dragging is a standard gesture for altering the size of an object whilst preserving its aspect ratio, which is ideal here.

Adjust the window size iteratively until you are happy. Then select the map adornment and click on the padlock icon, locking it into place.

For this, as in other projects, I have scaled my paintings so that they are flattened JPEG images with neither side greater than 512 pixels. These ensure that the picture is intelligible, but not so large as to make the whole document huge.

Create a new writing space for your first painting by double-clicking away from the map adornment. Set it to use your painting prototype. Switch to Edit rather than Read, then drag and drop your first painting onto its content area. With the insert mark at the right of the image, add any text you might wish, such as its caption details.

Resize the writing space’s tile in the Map view until the painting is shown well in it, then drag it over the map adornment until its bottom left corner is close to the correct place on the map. Then insert its date(s) of creation correctly.

Repeat this for each painting which you wish to include, adjusting the positions of their tiles on the map adornment according to the location referenced and good layout principles.

Once they are all in place, make any final adjustments, then go through the tiles one by one and set the $Lock attribute to true (ticked) so that they cannot be moved inadvertently.

Finally create a new window for the document, and set that to show the Timeline rather than Map view. You will again need to tweak the window size to get it to look right. Your paintings will now also be shown on the document’s timeline, without any further effort.

After amazingly little work, and without any complex scripts or other power features, you can now view the paintings in space in the Map view, and over time in the Timeline. You can do this in Storyspace or Tinderbox, and use the resulting document in either app.

Here is my example file: Bonington

Happy hypertexting!

A great flood is one of the most common elements in most mythologies. Floods appear in several variations across many quite different mythologies, and are a popular subject for depiction in European and non-European paintings.

Flood myths

The best-known story, at least in Europe, is that given in the Old Testament, in Genesis Chapters 6-9: the people of the world had become wicked and turned their backs on God, so God decided to send a flood to wipe them off the face of the earth. Only the faithful Noah and his family were to be spared, in recognition of their more godly ways. Noah was therefore told to build a large vessel, the Ark, into which he placed himself, his family, and a breeding pair of all the animals and birds on the earth.

The rain then fell and the earth flooded for a period of anything between 40 and 150 days. Everyone and everything else was engulfed in the waters and died. As the flood started to recede, Noah sent out a dove every seven days. One day the dove returned with an olive branch; a week later the dove did not return, and had presumably reached dry land, in the vicinity of Mount Ararat.

The flood then subsided and the earth was repopulated by the survivors from the Ark, and God made a covenant that the earth would never be flooded again in this way, and the rainbow would serve as the marker of that covenant.

There is a parallel account in classical Greek myth, told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and elsewhere. Prometheus warned his son, Deucalion, who was the ruler of Phthia, that a flood was coming, and to build a chest to contain provisions. The flood came, and only Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survived. The chest touched ground at Mount Parnassus (or Mounts Etna, Athos, or Othrys, depending on the version). As Deucalion and Pyrrha were old at the time, they consulted an oracle, who told them to cover their heads and throw rocks behind them. This they did and the rocks turned into people, who then repopulated the world.

Among the other myths is a Hindu account of a great flood in the Puranas, where it is Manu, the first man, who avoids the flood. Sadly there are only limited images available to represent that, and none is really comparable with those of the European stories.

Paintings depicting the Biblical or Greek great flood fall into two main categories: those showing the process of flooding and the deaths of the wicked, and those showing the flood at its height or falling.

Flooding and death

This painting by an unknown artist of The Great Flood (c 1450-1499) features Noah’s Ark, with its rich collection of wildlife, at the lower left. This is floating in the remains of a populous town, whose inhabitants fill the forming lake. Few facial expressions or body language bring out their distress, though, leaving a relatively bland overall impression.

Michelangelo’s The Great Flood (c 1509) in the Sistine Chapel is quite different. Noah’s Ark is in the background, and rescuing survivors from the water. Those who make it to land are more obviously distressed, and one appears to have drowned already. Desperation and panic are setting in.

Joachim Wtewael’s The Great Flood (1595) has more atmosphere, although its naked bodies appear curiously contorted. Wtewael is enjoying something of a revival as the result of exhibitions last year, but here at least seems enigmatic.

Adam Elsheimer’s The Great Flood (c 1600) is more conventional. It is nighttime, and the dense clouds are lit only by flashes of lightning. The population of a village is processing up to higher ground to escape the rising floodwaters. Faces are anxious, but there is no terror or panic.

Poussin combined his depiction of the flood with one of his late seasons, Winter (c 1660-1664). Lightning flashes in the background, where Noah’s Ark is seen floating securely. A small crowd has taken to the roof of a building to escape the waters. More desperate struggles are shown in the foreground, with a boat almost capsized, its occupant raising his hands in prayer.

More curious is the appearance of a snake, on the rocks at the left. Poussin not infrequently included snakes in his landscapes. This has not been explained convincingly, except as a reference to the role of the serpent in the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

John Martin’s The Deluge (1834) is more thoroughly apocalyptic, and refers to a non-Biblical account of a great flood resulting from an adverse alignment of the sun, moon, and earth and coincident impact of a comet.

Unusually, Merwart’s The Flood, painted towards the end of the 1800s, refers primarily to the Greek myth of Deucalion, who is here holding his wife up from the crashing waves. Unfortunately he does not appear to refer to the chest which was key to their survival.

Comerre’s The Flood of Noah and his Companions (1911) seems to have an inappropriate title, but captures most dramatically the struggle of a packed mass of naked humans and animals, with others slipping into the waters below to drown. This is also one of the few paintings of the flood which successfully conveys the impression of rain and everything being sodden wet. This appears to refer to Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, most appropriately, too.

Holzer’s The Flood (1975), from his Noah Cycle, includes a surprising amount of detail in its simplified content: a bolt of lightning, the Ark tossed around on the waves, splashes of white foam, a toothed shark, a whale, a tiger stranded on a rock. In the foreground, and clearest of all, is a single person, gasping for breath, their left hand held up in a bid for aid.

The waters at their peak, or falling

Thomas Cole’s The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge (1829) shows a more serene view, of the Ark floating peacefully in the middle distance, as barren land returns from the falling waters. Remains of uprooted and smashed trees appear, as does a single white human skull at the bottom.

Turner’s painting of the flood itself is, I think, altogether too vague to support much in the way of narrative. However its companion The Morning after the Deluge – more correctly Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory) – the Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis – (c 1843) has more structured content.

In a colour vortex based on Turner’s interpretation of Goethe’s Colour Theory, Moses is seen in the distance, writing the book of Genesis. In front of him is the brazen serpent used by Moses in the wilderness as a cure for plague, which symbolises Christ’s redemption of mankind in the New Covenant of his ministry on earth.

Although a visually spectacular painting, I do not think that Turner’s attempt to link colour theory with three completely asynchronous narratives results in a readable painting.

Discussion

Until the eighteenth century, most European artists (in common with the general population) believed the account in Genesis literally, and they would thus have thought that they were depicting a historical event, albeit with strong moral overtones. During the Age of Enlightenment, it gradually became clear that the earth’s and human history must have been different, and by the mid 1800s those who had a better education realised that the great flood was a myth.

The 1800s also saw the birth of archaeology, and of many important excavations, particularly in the Middle East, where the Biblical story was centred. Although other sciences, notably geology, were dismissive of flood myths, the deciphering of the Flood tablet (tablet 11) and the Gilgamesh series around 1872 brought another account of a great flood from even deeper human history.

Strangely, despite very extensive publicity, the Gilgamesh flood (and the Epic of Gilgamesh as a whole) has inspired almost no visual art over the 140 years since it first became widely accessible. As shown above, modern depictions of the great flood – which remain popular in painting and other visual arts – appear firmly based on the account in Genesis, although Merwart opted for Greek myth, and Martin for a substitute theory.

The Epic of Gilgamesh would have been known to many established narrative painters, including specialists such as Gérôme who had already visited the Middle East and painted many narratives from there. I think the main reason for those artists to reject the idea of painting Gilgamesh or his flood myth was the nearly complete lack of supporting visual material: almost all that we know from the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Akkadians has come to us in cuneiform texts, with few visual depictions to form a starting point for their visualisation.

Even the most experienced narrative painter needs some visual clues to start with.

Reference

Wikipedia

Cregan-Reid V (2010) Discovering Gilgamesh: Geology, Narrative and the Historical Sublime in Victorian Culture, Manchester UP. ISBN 978 0 7190 9051 6.

William Dyce (1806–1864) was another very well-trained Victorian British painter. Born in Aberdeen, he was trained in the Royal Academy Schools in London, and spent about two years in Rome between 1825 and 1828. When he returned to the UK, he set up as a portraitist, but started painting religious narrative works as well.

He had a long and significant career in art education, starting with the School of Design in Edinburgh. He was then invited to run the newly-established Government School of Design in London, which later became the Royal College of Art. In 1838 he was commissioned to enquire into the future of art and design education, and formulated what became known as the South Kensington System, which was the dominant model for art education for the remainder of the nineteenth century.

The Judgement of Solomon (1836)

This quite popular story for depiction in paintings is drawn from the Old Testament, the First book of Kings, chapter 3.

Solomon was known as a just and very wise king over the Israelites. Like many kings, he sat in judgement over disputes, assuming the role of the ultimate court of appeal. One day, two young women who lived in the same house came to him seeking his judgement. Both had recently given birth to sons, but one of the sons had died, leaving the mothers in dispute over the surviving infant.

The first mother claimed that the other mother had accidentally smothered her own baby when she was asleep, so had taken the first mother’s baby instead. The second mother claimed that no such thing had happened, but that the first mother’s baby had died, and the living baby was her own. So both mothers claimed the one living child as their own.

After some thought, Solomon called for a sword, and declared that the only fair solution was to cut the live child in two, so that each mother could receive half of him. The true mother then implored Solomon to give the whole baby to the other mother if that would spare his life, but the liar called on Solomon to go ahead and divide the infant as he had proposed. This could be the first description of what is now known as a classic problem in Game Theory.

Dyce’s composition of what is otherwise a classical narrative painting is unusual: Poussin and most others before him elected for symmetric views directly at Solomon on his throne, with the mothers on either side. Dyce chooses a side-on view which results in a linear sequence of figures, from a very young (rather than visibly sagacious) king high on his throne at the left, and putting the two mothers and their babies in the centre of the painting. This proves very effective.

Otherwise he follows Alberti, with good facial expressions and abundant body language. The view of the sky in the background appears sketchy if not incomplete, though.

Francesca da Rimini (1837)

This story is one of many embedded in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, in its first part Inferno (Hell). Paolo and Francesca da Rimini were in the second circle of hell for their sins of lust: she committed adultery with her husband’s brother, Paolo Malatesta. Her husband Giovanni (or Gian Cotto) then killed them both.

This is more conventionally depicted when they are both in hell, for example Doré’s Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (1863).

Dyce’s selection of scene for his painting is strange, in showing the adulterous couple engaged in apparently quite modest lovemaking, fully clad, under a crescent moon. However, an ominous hand belonging to someone else – presumably Francesca’s husband – is seen at the extreme left. There is also evidence of a more complete figure of Giovanni having been at that left edge, now presumably painted over. Without that, there are no real clues as to the narrative, nor to its imminent climax.

Neptune Resigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea (1847)

In 1845, Dyce was invited to paint frescos for the Royal Family, and he travelled to Italy to learn technique. On his return in 1847, he painted this curious composition in Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s new and luxurious holiday palace of Osborne House, at East Cowes on the Isle of Wight (just a few miles from where I live).

Neptune stands astride his three white seahorses (with fish tails!), holding their reins in his right hand, and passing his crown with the left. The crown is just about to be transferred by Mercury (with wings on his cap) to the gold-covered figure of Britannia, who holds a ceremonial silver trident in her right hand.

Neptune is supported by his entourage in the sea, including the statutory brace of nudes and conch-blowers. At the right, Britannia’s entourage is more serious in intent, and includes the lion of England, and figures representing industry, trade, and navigation.

The narrative is novel, and a tribute to his monarch, to denote the assumption of power over the seas of the world by Britannia, symbolising the Queen herself. It is undiluted tribute and flattery, of course.

Culver Cliff, Isle of Wight (1847)

While he was working on this fresco, Dyce appears to have taken a little time off to travel from Osborne, in the north, to the south-east, to paint this fine watercolour sketch from Shanklin looking across Sandown Bay to the distant red and white Culver Cliffs, forming the eastern promontory of the island.

I show this not because I would suggest that there is any narrative in this lovely painting, but for its relevance to his other work. For in addition to painting portraits and narrative works, Dyce was an accomplished landscape artist, with a predilection for coastal scenes featuring cliffs. Osborne House has its own private beach, and a few minutes away, in Cowes, there were ample opportunities for marine views. Yet Dyce chose to travel more than ten miles over quite rough tracks to what was then an undeveloped bay to paint this view.

Piety: The Knights of the Round Table about to Depart in Quest of the Holy Grail (1849)

Dyce also engaged in the popular Victorian sub-genre of Arthurian legend. This watercolour uses the hatching more commonly found in illustration and prints, and was the study for a fresco for the Queen’s Robing Room in the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament).

It shows a melée of knights of the Round Table paying tribute to King Arthur and Queen Guinevere (at the right), as those knights prepare to depart on their quest for the Holy Grail, the legendary chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper, before his crucifixion (or possibly a cup used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect Christ’s blood). It is perhaps the Arthurian equivalent of Frith’s Derby Day.

Unusually, Dyce tried to couple this series of Arthurian frescos with the seven Christian virtues. He completed those for Mercy, Hospitality, Generosity, Piety, and Courtesy, but not for Courage or Fidelity. The links between the narratives chosen and the corresponding virtue are not particularly strong.

The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (detail) (1850)

The meeting and marriage of Jacob and Rachel is described in the Old Testament, in Genesis chapter 29. Laban, Jacob’s uncle, had two daughters, Leah the older, and Rachel. Jacob was sent to Laban’s town to avoid being killed by Esau, and to find himself a wife. One day he was by the well, where Rachel was about to water Laban’s sheep, and decided to marry her; Laban required him to work for him for seven years to take Rachel as his wife. However, on the wedding night, Rachel’s older sister was substituted by Laban, who argued that it was customary for the older daughter to be given first in marriage, and offered to give Rachel to Jacob too if he worked another seven years for him. That he did.

Dyce follows convention in his portrayal of this first meeting. Rachel is shown as being shy and coy, her eyes and head downcast. Jacob stares intently at her, clasping her right hand to his chest while his left hand holds the nape of her neck.

King Lear and the Fool in the Storm (c 1851)

Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear, written in 1605-6, was based on the legend of a pre-Roman British king Leir, and shows gradual descent into madness of old age. As in several of his other plays, the role of Fool gives Shakespeare great scope for mockery, and to give deeper insight into Lear himself.

This particular scene occurs after Lear rages at Regan for putting his messenger in the stocks. Lear rushes out into a storm, accompanied by his Fool, where he rants against his ungrateful daughters, Regan and Goneril.

King Lear is shown having a good rant into the wind of the storm, his body language profuse. Resting with his head propped on the heels of his hands, the Fool also looks up to the heavens. This is another example of Dyce’s classic use of narrative techniques.

Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (c 1858)

Generally acclaimed as Dyce’s finest painting, this shows Pegwell Bay on the Kent coast, during a family holiday visit: a coastal scene with many similarities to that of his earlier Culver Cliff, but worked up into a large finished oil painting for exhibition at the Royal Academy (where it was shown in 1860).

Dominating the view are chalk cliffs, their strata and fine texture rendered in detail. The foreshore in front of them is relatively flat, and consists of rock ledges with intervening sand. The tide is well out, probably close to full ebb. The sun is setting and, although not visible in this image (it is high in the centre), the sky also shows Donati’s comet, which is not due to return until 3811.

Various figures are scattered across the beach. At the foot of the cliffs is a small group of donkeys, a common feature of seaside resorts, and some sheep and their shepherd. Three heavily-dressed women and a small boy are in the foreground. One woman is bent double, inspecting the ground intently by a chalk rib. The small boy, presumably Dyce’s own son, holds a beach spade, but appears to be staring emptily into the distance.

There is no obvious narrative in this painting, which by its title and content might appear to be a straightforward coastal view. Yet it is generally held that there are deep readings: Cregan-Reid, for example, considers that it is about time – astronomical time of the comet, deep geological time of the cliffs and fossils, the more momentary existence of the people, and the regular cycles of tides and sun.

I am afraid that I am not entirely convinced.

Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting (1860)

If Dyce’s view of Pegwell Bay lacks incongruities which might support a deeper reading, this slightly later painting goes out of its way to be odd.

In the autumn of 1860, Dyce stayed in the Conwy Valley for six weeks, where he sketched and painted avidly. After his return to London, he painted this in oils, showing the rough and rugged scenery above the valley, a rock outcrop filling much of the left half of the painting. In its centre is an old woman, and to the right a young one, each dressed in traditional clothes, and knitting. A sliver of a crescent moon is visible low in the sky.

The younger woman wears a formal ensemble which had recently been revived and designated the ‘Welsh national costume’, as might be worn for Eisteddfods and other special occasions. They are both knitting stockings from scavenged scraps of wool, an activity which might have been common earlier in the century and performed indoors at home. It had largely disappeared by 1860, and is a conspicuously incongruous activity for such an outdoor location.

If there is one of Dyce’s paintings which shouts out that it has a deeper reading, it is this. It is easy to postulate that this too is about time: the contrasting ages of the women and their ‘historic’ costume, knitting (as with Leighton’s Winding the Skein) being an activity used to pass the time usefully, the geology of the rock outcrop, and the moon. But is that Dyce’s intent?

Discussion

William Dyce was an eloquent if rather conventional narrative artist, when tackling traditional stories. The difficulties in reading his paintings, though, come with works such as his view of Pegwell Bay, and above all his Welsh landscape. Are they about time? Without a recent catalogue raisonné and appropriate studies, it is very hard to know.

References

Wikipedia

Cregan-Reid V (2010) Discovering Gilgamesh: Geology, Narrative and the Historical Sublime in Victorian Culture, Manchester UP. ISBN 978 0 7190 9051 6.