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Commemorating the bicentenary of Henry Fuseli’s death: 2
Two hundred years ago, on 16 April 1825, the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, who had lived and worked in Britain for much of his life, died in Putney Hill, London. (There is a disparity in the date of his...
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Changing Paintings: 66 The tale of Polyphemus
Aeneas has just returned from visiting his father’s spirit in the underworld, with the Sibyl of Cumae as his guide. Ovid then uses two of Ulysses’ men to relate episodes from Homer’s Odyssey in...
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Easter Paintings: 1 The Passion
Easter is one of the two landmarks in the Christian calendar. This weekend I devote three articles to paintings of the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Although these don’t sync...
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Easter Paintings: 2 The Crucifixion
In this second of my three articles devoted to paintings of Easter, I cover the Crucifixion, from Christ’s ascent to calvary bearing his cross, to the entombment of his body. Way of the cross Jacopo...
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Easter Paintings: 3 The Resurrection
This third and final article devoted to paintings of Easter covers the events after the entombment, from Christ’s body in the sepulchre and the harrowing of Hell, to the Resurrection. Although less...
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Changing Paintings: 67 Circe and her swine
Aeneas and his crew are ashore at Caieta (Gaeta), midway between Naples and Rome, where two of the survivors of Ulysses’ crew meet to tell stories from Homer’s Odyssey. Following Achaemenides’ account...
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Reading Visual Art: 203 Triptychs A
One of the common presentations for European paintings has been in the form of a folding, self-supporting group of several panels. As altarpieces these have graced the space above and behind the altar...
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Reading Visual Art: 204 Triptychs B
By the late nineteenth century, the classical format of the triptych that had been developed for altarpieces, was being used to tell secular stories as well as more traditional religious ones. Some...
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Interiors by Design: Potted plants
Growing plants indoors is an ancient tradition, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that it became popular among the middle classes. While some were grown for their flowers, foliage plants...
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Urban Revolutionaries: 11 Crowds and traffic
As more people were drawn from the surrounding countryside to populate growing towns and cities, the density of people within them rose. Accommodation became crowded, the streets were often full of...
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Pre-Raphaelite landscapes of John Brett: 1 Travels
By about 1862, most artists had abandoned trying to paint Pre-Raphaelite landscapes because of their impossible demands. To conform to the prescriptions of critic John Ruskin required long weeks...
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Pre-Raphaelite landscapes of John Brett: 2 The Channel
In the first of these two articles, I showed some of the series of Pre-Raphaelite landscapes painted by John Brett (1831–1902) prior to 1870. This article continues by looking at his paintings from...
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Changing Paintings: 68 Apotheosis of Aeneas
Macareus, one of the survivors from the Odyssey, has been giving his account of the sojourn of Ulysses and his men on Circe’s island. Having told of their arrival and transformation into pigs, he...
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Reading Visual Art: 205 Colour codes A
The use of colour to add meaning to images is longstanding practice, and can be traced back to ancient Egyptians, who tended to use it to distinguish males from females. Most probably the result of...
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Reading Visual Art: 206 Colour codes B
While the use of colour to encode meaning in terms of sex/gender or devils is relatively unusual, there are other situations where colour conventions are employed in paintings. Among these are...
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Interiors by Design: Music rooms
What did we do in the evenings before the arrival of TV and radio? People read, talked to one another, played games, and made music. Many middle class homes had a piano, and many children became...
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Urban Revolutionaries: 12 Parks
As cities grew during the nineteenth century, what had been countryside in and around them was swallowed up by housing and factories. In the first couple of decades, livestock grazed and cows were...
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From the Commedia dell’Arte to Punch and Judy 1
Stage plays have been the source for many paintings, from the development of the professional theatre across Europe in the mid-sixteenth century in what soon became known as the commedia dell’arte,...
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From the Commedia dell’Arte to Punch and Judy 2
Soon after the Commedia dell’Arte had spread across Europe, travelling performers started entertaining the public with a different but related show, that of Punch and Judy. Mr Punch, the lead male, is...
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Changing Paintings: 69 Vertumnus and Pomona
Following the apotheosis of Aeneas, Ovid lists a succession of rulers of Latium and Alba, the city founded by Aeneas, until he reaches King Proca, who prompts his next stories of transformation,...
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