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Silent Hunters of the Night: paintings of owls 1
To diurnal humans, nocturnal hunters are disturbing and unnatural. When they’re also silent as they fly through the air, they have all the ingredients of terror. Today we may cherish owls and value...
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Silent Hunters of the Night: paintings of owls 2
In the first of these two articles about paintings of owls, I claimed their association with wisdom and learning was the result of their being one of the attributes of the classical goddess...
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Don Quixote 44: A governor starved and a knight pinched
In the previous episode, Sancho Panza had assumed the governorship of the ‘Island’ of Barataria amid general rejoicing. Once he’d given thanks and been presented with the keys to the town, he was taken...
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Art and Science: 8 Medicine
The seventeenth century had seen a little interest in anatomy lessons conducted with the dissection of a human cadaver, and the occasional physician had earned themselves a portrait, such as that by...
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Painting Everyday London: 4 Robert Bevan 1
Walter Sickert and his circle invited other artists to join the Fitzroy Street and Camden Town Groups. Among them was the son of a banker who had trained at the Académie Julian in Paris, Robert Polhill...
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Painting Everyday London: 5 Robert Bevan 2
By 1915, as I wrote in my first article about him, Robert Polhill Bevan (1865–1925) was treasurer of the London Group, successor to the Camden Town Group, and had formed his own group centred on his...
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Altogether Now: 1 Hans Memling’s Passion, 1470
Throughout the Renaissance the most popular choice for church altarpieces was a polyptych showing the story of the Crucifixion. The early Netherlandish painter Hans Memling (c 1433–1494) painted many,...
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In memoriam Paul Durand-Ruel: was he the inventor of Impressionism?
One hundred years ago today, on 5 February 1922, Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) died in Paris at the age of 90. He was the art dealer who bought and sold more Impressionist paintings than all other...
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The Animals Went in Two by Two in paintings
Each cultural tradition has its own myths on the origin and history of animals, and several have been depicted in great European paintings. This article looks at some of the best. Raphael (1483–1520)...
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Don Quixote 45: Rounds and a present
In the previous episode, Sancho Panza took lunch as governor of the ‘Island’ of Barataria, with his doctor sat beside him. The latter, though, dismissed every dish as being unhealthy for Sancho to eat,...
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Art and Science: 9 Seurat’s Neo-Impressionism
Until the late nineteenth century, no school or movement in art had been founded on science. It’s true that developments in realist painting during the Renaissance took advantage of Brunelleschi’s...
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Art and Science: 10 Neo-Impressionism after Seurat
Georges Seurat was by no means alone when he was developing his new scientific style of painting, called variously Divisionism, Neo-Impressionism, or Pointillism. Early members of this new school of...
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Painting Everyday London: 6 James Dickson Innes
So far, the artists of the Camden Town Group whom I’ve covered in this series have been among its core members. Most painted domestic interiors and views of everyday life in London, the hallmarks of...
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Altogether Now: 2 Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, c 1500
Every painting is unique, but this one is among the most unique works of art ever produced in Europe. It’s also one of the most densely narrative paintings, featuring dozens, maybe hundreds, of curious...
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The Complete Angler in paintings 1
This weekend I’ve gone fishing, or angling to be more precise, as I look at some paintings in which there are people fishing with a rod and line, rather than a boat and nets. Historically, it’s one of...
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The Complete Angler in paintings 2
In the first of these two articles looking at anglers in paintings, I reached the early nineteenth century and its flourishing landscape art. Painters including Thomas Girtin, John Linnell and John...
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Painted cupids for Valentine’s Day
Of all the modern festivals, that of Saint Valentine is the most pagan of all. Branded with a saint’s name, we know next to nothing about the saint, and in 1969 his name was removed from the General...
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The 200th anniversary of Herman ten Kate, Reminiscences 1
This week we have two painters to celebrate, and they couldn’t be more contrasting considering that their lives overlapped by a decade. Today and tomorrow I celebrate the life and work of Herman...
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The 200th anniversary of Herman ten Kate, Reminiscences 2
Two hundred years ago today, on 16 February 1822, the popular Dutch painter Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate (1822–1891) was born in the Hague. In the first article yesterday, I covered much of his...
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Altogether Now: 3 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters, 1565
If there’s one thing we all remember from school it must be the water cycle, that diagram showing how rain comes from clouds, which come from the sea, which is fed by the rivers. Or, as John Evans and...
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