Clik here to view.
Characters in Painted Stories: 11 The moment of change
Christopher Booker’s analysis of literary narratives into The Seven Basic Plots follows a long tradition of analysis which goes back to Aristotle’s Poetics, which dates from around 335 BCE. Having...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Landscape Composition: 17 A short history
Over the last few months, I have looked at different aspects of the composition of landscape paintings. This article is a first attempt to draw those topics together into a short history. From the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 2 Synthetic pigments
Reduced to its basics, painting is the process of applying pigment in a binder to the ground on a support. Pigments have long been required, rather than dyes, as the particles containing colourant...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Christmas Eve in paintings
Western Christmas traditions are rich and varied, and many that we take for granted are surprisingly recent innovations. To celebrate the major feast and festival of the year, I bring three articles...
View ArticleClik here to view.
With ox and ass: traditional paintings of the Nativity
Happy Christmas! To celebrate today, I’ve selected some of my favourite Nativity scenes which follow the traditional formula of including the Holy Family with the company of an ox and an ass, or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Paintings of the Adoration of the Shepherds
To celebrate Boxing Day, I have a selection of my favourite paintings showing the Adoration of the Shepherds, although I start with a sadly abandoned Adoration, this time of the Magi. Following the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An illustrated Christmas Carol
A relatively recent secular tradition of Christmas in Europe and elsewhere is the seasonal story. Some develop the theme of the long, dark nights of the winter with ghosts and the paranormal, but in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Quixote 38: The hunting party and the first trick
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were eating as guests of the Duke and Duchess, when their chaplain’s speech made the knight seethe with anger. He rose and delivered a searing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Quixote 39: Sancho’s letter
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were taken out hunting by the Duke and Duchess. The party met with quick success in the form of a wild boar, but Sancho Panza climbed a tree in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The best of 2021’s paintings and articles 1
The last year in articles about artists and paintings has brought a varied assortment of art and background stories. In this and tomorrow’s sequel I look at some of those that I have enjoyed most,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The best of 2021’s paintings and articles 2
In the first of these two samplers looking back at articles and paintings published here during this past year, I covered the first six months. In the summer I started a major series looking at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The New Year in paintings
Everyone knows that the first month of the New Year is January, and is named after the Roman god of transitions, including beginnings, gates and doorways, and the start of the year. Only that story has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Next Year in Paintings: Rosa Bonheur, Piero di Cosimo, Léon Bonnat and others
Each year I celebrate the lives and work of artists with anniversaries. Although 2022 doesn’t feature any major masters, there should be plenty to interest you in the following. Antoine Coypel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Quixote 40: The bearded duennas
In the previous episode, the Duke and Duchess had been preparing further tricks to play on Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, after the latter had agreed to lash himself three thousand three hundred times...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Landscape Composition: 0 Artists and contents
This article lists the contents of those in this series on the composition of landscape paintings. After those is an index of artists whose paintings are included in articles. A broad overview: 1...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 3 Enlightenment
During the eighteenth century, life and ideas in Europe underwent change generally known as the Age of Enlightenment, in which reason came to the fore, replacing superstition and, in some respects,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In memoriam Antoine Coypel 1
Tomorrow is the three hundredth anniversary of the death of one of the most famous of the Coypel family of artists, Antoine (1661–1722). In this article and tomorrow’s I’ll try to give an overview of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In memoriam Antoine Coypel 2
Three hundred years ago today, on 7 January 1722 Antoine Coypel died. In the first of these two articles commemorating his life and art, I showed examples from the earlier years of his career,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Thread of Time in paintings 1: The Fates
Time is one of the two fundamental elements of narrative, the other being events. Depicting time is one of the great challenges in narrative painting, and referring to time as a concept within a visual...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Thread of Time in paintings 2: Threads
In the first of these two articles yesterday, I showed some paintings which depicted the concept of time through its mythological expression in the Fates. Today I look at more subtle allusions which...
View Article