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Reading visual art: 177 Peace, modern
In yesterday’s article, I showed examples of paintings using classical deities and resolved conflicts in ancient history to depict the concept of peace. Today I move on to more recent and modern...
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The Real Country: The Year
For those working the land to grow crops, the start of the year was after the harvest was complete, when the first cooler days of autumn came in, before rain turned the fields and tracks to mud, and...
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Interiors by Design: Nordic flair
In the middle of the nineteenth century, as cities across Europe were growing rapidly, the Arts and Crafts Movement spread from its origins in England to bring a new wave of interest in furniture and...
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Paintings of New York City, 1886-1908
At the start of the nineteenth century, the population of New York City was only 60,000, about a tenth that of Paris. By 1900, Paris had grown to about 2.7 million, and New York had outstripped it,...
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Paintings of New York City, 1909-1921
In the first of these two articles looking at paintings depicting change in New York City between the mid-1880s and 1920, I had just introduced the paintings of skyscrapers by Colin Campbell Cooper....
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Changing Paintings: 48 Killed by Apollo’s discus
After Orpheus has told of the abduction of Ganymede, he moves on to tell of another shameful passion, that of Apollo for the young Spartan, Hyacinthus. One midday, Apollo and Hyacinthus undressed, as...
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Reading visual art: 178 Knitting, past and pastime
Knitting, and its close relative crochet, form strands of wool or yarn into loops that assemble the fibres into fabric. Although machines have long been used to make knitted garments commercially,...
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Reading visual art: 179 Knitting, poverty
This second article considering the reading of knitting and crochet in paintings concludes with its most frequent use, as a sign of the peasant and poverty. This first became prominent in the social...
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The Real Country: Drains and engines
The late nineteenth century brought great changes throughout Europe. Country areas were depopulated as cities attracted labour to work in their factories, lured by the empty promise of material...
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Interiors by Design: Félix Vallotton’s disturbing domestics
A domestic interior is an ideal setting for something unusual if not downright unsettling. Amid everyday furniture and decor, something odd is going on. Although best known today as one of the Nabis,...
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Paintings of the Coast of California 1
It’s too cold along the coast of New England for this weekend’s travels, so let’s go to the West Coast, to California instead. In this article and its sequel tomorrow I’ll show you some of the few...
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Paintings of the Coast of California 2
In this second day of our visit to the coast of California in paintings, we have reached the years of the First World War, whose trenches and mud in northern Europe must have seemed so far removed....
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Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of Girodet
Two hundred years ago today, 9 December, one of the most celebrated French artists of the early nineteenth century died in Paris. He was known in full as Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, shortened...
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Changing Paintings: 49 Galatea transformed from a statue
After Ovid has told of the tragic death of Hyacinthus, he moves on to one of his most unusual myths. Almost all the myths of transformation gathered in his Metamorphoses involve one or more people...
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The Real Country: People
During the nineteenth century, paintings depicting ‘real’ life of ordinary people became increasingly popular, first in what has become known as social realism, pioneered by Jean-François Millet, then...
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Paintings of 1924: 1 Portraits and figures
At the end of each year I trawl through images of paintings that are thought to have been created a century ago. Together they show how rich and varied art was at a time when most histories are devoted...
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Celebrating the bicentenary of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes 1
Two centuries ago tomorrow the major French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born in Lyon. In this and tomorrow’s concluding article I briefly celebrate his career and work. Puvis had never...
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Celebrating the bicentenary of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes 2
Two centuries ago today, 14 December, the major French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born in Lyon. In this second and concluding article celebrating his career and art, I continue from the...
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Commemorating the centenary of the death of Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy,...
A century ago today, 15 December, the French artist Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy died in Paris. Also known by his pen name of Géo, he is one of the great painters of children and childhood in the European...
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Changing Paintings: 50 The making of myrrh and birth of Adonis
Ovid’s sequel to the story of Pygmalion’s marriage to his former statue is a darker tale of incest, transformation, and obstetrics in the arboretum, resulting in myrrh and the unique birth of Adonis....
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