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Bicentenary of Théodule Ribot: 19th century chiaroscuro
Not all nineteenth century painters followed the mainstream. Some like Fantin-Latour broke their own ground with floral paintings, group portraits and other eccentricities. Two hundred years ago today,...
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Ukrainian Painters: 19th century Realism
Now that I have shown some of the work of all the Ukrainian painters that I can obtain information on, and suitable images for, I start the task of trying to give a more coherent account of the...
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Centenary of the death of Joaquín Sorolla 3
By the early years of the twentieth century, Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) had established himself a formidable reputation as one of the great painters of Europe. In 1906 he had a solo exhibition of...
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Reading visual art: 68 Eyes ≠ 2
One of the almost invariant characteristics of humans is that they have two eyes, even when one or both might not be capable of sight. Myth and legend has brought us two well-painted instances of...
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In Memoriam Gerard David who died 500 years ago 1
Five hundred years ago, on 13 August 1523, the Netherlandish painter Gerard David died in Bruges, now in West Flanders in Belgium. Although one of the less-known masters of the Northern Renaissance, he...
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In Memoriam Gerard David who died 500 years ago 2
In the first of these two articles commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of the death of the Netherlandish painter Gerard David (c 1450/1460–1523) I showed examples of his paintings up to 1510....
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Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: 14 Saint-Sulpice
Yesterday, 13 August, marked the 160th anniversary of the death of Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), whose last major work was a set of three large paintings to decorate the Chapel of Saint-Anges in the...
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Trojan Epics: 25 Death of Odysseus
Agamemnon died at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. After he had founded the city of Lavinium, precursor of Rome, Aeneas was deified as Jupiter Indiges. Meanwhile the last...
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Ukrainian Painters: Transition to the 20th century
This is the second of three articles surveying the Ukrainian painters that I have already considered individually, in an attempt to construct a more coherent account of painting in Ukraine during the...
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Reading visual art: 69 Faces > 1
If it’s not enough to have Argus with his hundred eyes, some figures in classical mythology had to have more than one face. As the face is often equated with character, this enabled them to behave in...
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Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: 15 Final narratives
As Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was completing his paintings in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, he painted several unusual easel works. His other significant project in these final years of his career was...
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Painting aerial views 1
Few of us today haven’t seen the world beneath us from an aircraft or high building, and aerial views are familiar if not everyday. Just a century ago, the world was very different, and the vast...
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Painting aerial views 2
In the first of these two articles yesterday, I showed a selection of paintings of aerial views from the early Renaissance to the middle of the nineteenth century. By the last couple of decades in that...
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Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: 16 Seasons
When Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) had started work on his paintings in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, he was commissioned by the Alsacian industrialist and politician Frédéric Hartmann (1822-1880) to...
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Trojan Epics: 0 Summary and contents
This series summarises the series of epics known as the Epic Cycle that tell of the events surrounding the Trojan War. Although only three – Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid – survive in...
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Ukrainian Painters: The Modern
By the end of the nineteenth century, Ukrainian art schools were at last training the Ukrainian artists of the future, who were able to make their own styles and develop distinctive movements. Among...
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Reading visual art: 70 Ladder
Ladders are older than human history, although they relatively seldom rise to the occasion in paintings. When they do, as a way to ascend to heaven they may have deeper meaning. This brief survey shows...
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High: introduction to a new series on painting mountains
This is the time of year when those who can, go high into the cool of the mountains to wait for the summer’s heat to ease in the lowlands and coast. To mark that, and prepare for the coming winter,...
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Paintings of wetlands 1
In case yesterday’s introduction to a new series on paintings of mountains has left you feeling giddy, this weekend I come down towards sea level with two articles looking at paintings of wetlands....
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Paintings of wetlands 2
In the first of these two articles on paintings of wetlands, I showed a selection from before 1890, a period in which most of those wilderness areas were left to nature to manage. Today I progress...
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