Clik here to view.
Don Quixote 41: Flying a wooden horse
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were in the gardens of the Duke and Duchess, waiting for the arrival of the Countess of Trifaldi, alias the Dolorous Duenna. When she arrived in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 4 The struggle with yellow
In contrast to blue pigments, yellows have been a greater challenge, and remain so even today. The most common traditional natural pigments are ochres derived from local supplies of coloured earths....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Characters in Painted Stories: 12 Telling a familiar story
Until the nineteenth century, pretty well every narrative painting relied on the viewer already being familiar with the original story, and its purpose was to show a part which would elicit those...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Characters in Painted Stories: 13 Telling a new story
In the nineteenth century, storytelling in literature changed. New genres such as detective and ‘mystery’ novels started to challenge the convention of narrative closure. Readers of Edgar Allan Poe’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Painting Everyday London: 1 Spencer Gore started
Alongside Walter Sickert, it was probably Spencer Gore (1878–1914) who was the leading light of the Camden Town Group of artists. Gore was 33 when he found himself its first president, at a time when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Paintings of drawn carts 1
This weekend I’m taking a trip back to the many centuries of painting before our roads were taken over by motor vehicles, and celebrating the far longer partnership between animals and people, who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Paintings of drawn carts 2
In the first article of this pair looking at a small selection of paintings of horses and oxen drawing carts, I concentrated on human loads. Carts and wagons of various types also moved all manner of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Coming Genius: the short art of René Beeh 1
The early twentieth century brought many bright stars, some of whom only burned so brilliantly for a few short years. Among them were Egon Schiele, who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, and René...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Quixote 42: The governor and the wooed
In the previous episode, Don Quixote had assured the Countess of Trifaldi that he would stop at nothing to relieve her and the dozen duennas of their long and thick beards. She told the knight that the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 5 Colour theory
Colour is one of the fundamentals in painting. It’s all very well having rich and brilliant pigments, but if you don’t understand how to mix them to create the colours you want to appear in your...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Characters in Painted Stories: 0 Summary and contents
This article is an overview and summary of this series, as well as linking to each of its articles. While there has been a great deal of excellent writing on literary narrative, precious few studies...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Painting Everyday London: 2 Spencer Gore concluded
In the first of these two articles looking at the short career and paintings of Spencer Gore (1878–1914), first president of the Camden Town Group, I showed examples from the start of his professional...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Paintings of guinea pigs and goldfish
Dogs and cats have long been the most popular domestic pets, but among children in particular smaller furry creatures such as rabbits and guinea pigs have also been endearing, so long as you’ve been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Last 7 Years on My Mac: an anniversary
A lot was happening seven years ago. On Friday 16 January 2015, MacUser magazine, the original UK title, ceased publication. That was my cue to set this blog up, primarily as a platform for me to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Coming Genius: the short art of René Beeh 2
This second article about René Beeh (1886–1922) commemorates the centenary of his death, and continues from the first. At the end of the war, Beeh illustrated two more books, the 1918 edition of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Quixote 43: The judge and an angry cat
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were the victims of another of the Duke and Duchess’s wicked tricks. After a bit of persuasion, Sancho Panza dressed up as a combination of a man...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 6 Heroes of science
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, science and scientists were unusual themes for paintings. Then, when sciences captured the imagination of many non-scientists, they flourished. In this and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art and Science: 7 Technology
The late nineteenth century not only saw advances in pure science, but the technologies of the industrial revolution scaled up into large factories, and became commonplace in the lives of many living...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Painting Everyday London: 3 Harold Gilman
Another of the leading members of Walter Sickert’s Fitzroy Street Group, from its foundation in 1907, who went on to be one of the sixteen elected members of the Camden Town Group, was Harold Gilman...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Altogether Now: Introduction to uniquely visual narrative
Visual narrative, the mainstay of much of painting since the Renaissance, is too often considered to be the poor relative of serial forms of storytelling in literature and movies. There’s at least one...
View Article