Solutions to Christmas Mac riddles 235
I hope that you enjoyed this Christmas Mac Riddles, episode 235. Here are my solutions to them. 1: Iodine Scotsman, a professional, was first with Apple’s chip. Click for a solution iMac Pro (2017)...
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Paintings of 1923: 4 Landscapes
In this, my last article showing paintings believed to have been made a century ago, in 1923, I venture beyond France, and show some of the rest of the world, from Norway to California. Nikolai Astrup...
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Heretic or heroine of France? Joan of Arc, the martyr
In the previous article, I briefly summarised the life of Joan of Arc, and looked at paintings showing her visions. Those resulted in her being called to help the Dauphin of France, its future King...
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Reading visual art: 99 Feasts sacred
One of the best locations for a painting, whether in a house of religion, mansion or palace, is in the eating hall. During the sixteenth century in particular paintings were used to brighten up the...
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Reading visual art: 100 Feasts secular
Although no painting of a secular feast can compete in fame with those of the Last Supper, several drawn from classical myth have become well known. Of these, the wedding feast of Peleus and Thetis has...
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The best of 2023’s paintings and articles: 1 Ukraine
At the end of December, I take a look back at some of my favourite paintings and articles drawn from the previous year. However, as last year I spent eight months gathering and publishing a series of...
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The best of 2023’s paintings and articles: 2
Apart from my lengthy series about artists from Ukraine, last year brought several series of articles about paintings, and others that you may have missed, or might simply enjoy revisiting. Here are my...
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The best of 2023’s paintings and articles: 3
In the second half of last year, I launched several new series on paintings. This article looks at those and some other articles that you may have missed, or might simply enjoy revisiting, before we...
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Next Year in Paintings: Géricault, Gérôme, Boudin and more
Each year I celebrate the lives and works of artists with anniversaries. This coming year there are three major anniversaries: it’s the bicentenary of the untimely death of Théodore Géricault, the...
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Reading visual art: 101 Fishing A
At one time, fishing with a rod and line or angling was claimed to be the most popular participatory sport in Britain. In this and tomorrow’s articles about the reading of visual art, I show examples...
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Reading visual art: 102 Fishing B
In the first of these two articles, I showed narrative paintings of angling, fishing with rod and line. I conclude here with examples of landscapes and other non-narrative works incorporating anglers...
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High: Down Under
Better-known for its seemingly endless plains, Australia isn’t particularly mountainous, and has few peaks higher than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), all of which are in the Snowy Mountains in New South...
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Changing Paintings: an introduction to a new series on Ovid’s Metamorphoses
If you had walked into the workshop or studio of almost any European painter between 1500 and 1850, there’s one book you’d most likely find there: a well-worn copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Of all the...
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Paintings from Pont-Aven: 1860 to Gauguin
Artists, for all their individuality, are a sociable bunch, and group together, although it wasn’t until the popularisation of outdoor landscape painting in the nineteenth century that they formed...
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Paintings from Pont-Aven: Laval and Sérusier to 1900
Visits to the Breton village of Pont-Aven by Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard in the mid and late 1880s helped promote the colony’s reputation. From about 1888, a succession of avant garde painters...
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Changing Paintings: 1 Creation and Lycaon’s cannibalism
Ovid opens the first book of his Metamorphoses by stating his aim, to tell us tales of bodies changed into new forms, the meaning of the title. He then starts at the literal beginning, with his short...
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Reading visual art: 103 Sport old and mythical
Many civilisations have held competitive sports in high esteem, and it’s only to be expected that they feature in myths, literature and the paintings derived from them. In today’s article I show...
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Reading visual art: 104 Sport genteel and modern
Some modern sports owe their origins to the games of childhood catalogued by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in his painting shown in the previous article. Among those were games played using racquets such...
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High: Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountains
As the northern section of the mountains forming the spine of the Americas, the Rocky Mountains are effectively a continuation of the Andes, which had been painted most notably by Frederic Edwin Church...
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Map or painting?
Whatever their pretensions as works of art, the earliest landscape paintings, and a great many since, are fundamentally visual records of the world. Some are only loosely related to topography and...
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