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Coast: The Cornish Riviera in the twentieth century
At the end of the nineteenth century, Cornwall and its marvellous coast was within easy reach of London, and its colony centred on Newlyn was growing in fame and size. Charles Conder (1868–1909), The...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 48 – Dryope, and an...
After he has told us the story of the birth of Hercules, Ovid uses Alcmena’s link with Hercules’ former lover Iole to introduce a relatively obscure story of transformation, that of Dryope. The Story...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 0 – index and bibliography
There are two major literary sources which have inspired more European and North American paintings than any others: the Bible, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although most of us are at least fairly...
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Visions of Asgard: Paintings of Norse Mythology – major gods
Northern and Southern Europe are almost different continents. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the spread of Christianity and its impact on art. In the Mediterranean countries, Christians were...
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Visions of Asgard: Paintings of Norse Mythology – minor gods and the Wild Hunt
In the first of these two articles, I looked at some paintings of the major deities in the Norse pantheon, and the myths associated with them. This article continues with some of the less well-known...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 49 – Transgender marriage
As Ovid reaches the end of Book 9 of his Metamorphoses, and has just told us of the tragic transformation of Byblis into a spring of her own tears, he tackles one of his most remarkably insightful...
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Fra Bartolomeo, a Renaissance Master: 1504-1512
When he became swept up in the religious fervour which accompanied the ministry and martyrdom of Savonarola, Baccio della Porta entered a monastery, became Fra Bartolomeo, and stopped painting...
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Coast: Wintering in Capri 1, to 1880
The cradle of plein air painting in oils was the Roman campagna, where during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries budding landscape painters had to go and paint. But other parts of the...
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Coast: Wintering in Capri 2, from 1881
During the early and mid nineteenth century, a succession of artists had visited Capri and painted its coastline. These included several who had trained in Düsseldorf, Germany, and their works became...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 50 – Orpheus and Eurydice
Ovid ended Book 9 of his Metamorphoses with some myths which posed painters problems, but opens Book 10 with one of the greatest and most enduring stories of the European canon: that of Orpheus and...
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Brief Candles: Susan Watkins, the Woman in White
… Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. (William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.) It’s...
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From the Vienna Opera to Mountains of the Mind: Georg Janny and scenery painting
In the 1860s, Vienna saw the birth of a new industry: with the building of what is now the Vienna State Opera (then known as the Vienna Court Opera), many businesses became involved in its lavish...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 51 – How the cypress tree...
Book 10 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses follows the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice with two brief stories of people transformed into trees. The first is only mentioned in passing, as a link to the main story...
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Fra Bartolomeo, a Renaissance Master: 1513-1517
The Florentine friar Fra Bartolomeo (1472–1517) had recovered from his self-imposed exile from painting following the martyrdom of Savonarola, and by about 1508 was considered the leading painter in...
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The Artist as Explorer: François Auguste Biard 1 – Spitsbergen
The Paris Salon in 1841 was agog at the paintings of an artist who has been almost completely forgotten today. Three large canvases by François-Auguste Biard (1799–1882) transported the public to the...
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The Artist as Explorer: François Auguste Biard 2 – Tropics
In my first article about François-Auguste Biard (1799–1882), I gave an introduction to his biography, and looked at the paintings which he made of the Arctic around the time of his own visit to...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 52 – Hyacinthus killed by a...
In Ovid’s previous story in Book 10 of his Metamorphoses, Cyparissus was transformed into a cypress tree in recognition of his grief when he accidentally killed his ‘pet’ stag. The next story concerns...
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Coast: Maine 1, nineteenth century
Maine, the small state tucked away at the north-east extremity of the US, is the coast to paint if you’re an East Coast landscape artist. Its climate may not be ideal for plein air work, but its...
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Coast: Maine 2, twentieth century
In the first of these two articles to look at paintings of the coast of Maine, I covered the work of nineteenth century artists, ending with Winslow Homer’s works which he made in and around his studio...
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Changing Stories: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on canvas, 53 – Pygmalion and his statue
Ovid moves his Metamorphoses on from the commemoration of the dead Hyacinthus in the purple hyacinth flower, to one of his most unusual myths. The vast majority of the myths of transformation which he...
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