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Pure Landscapes: Camille Pissarro, 1870-74
Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the Pissarros fled first to friends in Montfoucault, then in early December travelled on to England, where they settled in Norwood, at that time an...
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Pure Landscapes: Alfred Sisley, 1870-74
The Franco-Prussian War was much harder for the Sisleys. With the Prussian occupation of Bougival, close to Pissarro’s house in Louveciennes, they fled to Paris. Although Sisley himself had British...
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Look at My Eyes: Reading gaze in paintings
Many paintings rely on quite subtle clues as to their reading. Is that figure simply a portrait, or are they intended to tell us more, even refer to a narrative? What’s going on in this group of...
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Due to a very high volume of comment spam, I’m afraid that I have had to temporarily suspend adding comments to older articles on this blog. You can still add comments to articles which have been...
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Getting the Point: Reading hands in paintings
In yesterday’s article, I showed examples of paintings in which reading the gaze of figures is important. Today I look at something which may appear even more obvious, but can be missed altogether:...
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I have now enabled commenting on older articles again. Please feel free to do so. Let’s hope the comment spammers have gone away again.
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The Divine Comedy: Paradise 3 The wise and warriors
From the shell containing the planet Venus, Dante and Beatrice pass from the shadow of the earth into the full light of the Sun, which occupies the next shell in their outward and upward journey...
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Work in Progress: Claude Monet’s Grainstacks series
Understanding how the French Impressionists created their masterpieces is one of the great problems in the history of painting. They were assiduously careful to reveal as little as necessary, and as a...
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Visual Riddles: Refinement
By the early 1880s, many painters had made narrative paintings which didn’t resolve, and those works were starting to attract a following at exhibitions. This article looks at some examples which were...
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Pure Landscapes: Camille Pissarro, 1875-79
During the mid 1870s, Camille Pissarro often painted in company with Paul Cézanne, who credited Pissarro with being his major mentor during his Impressionist period in northern France. The late 1870s...
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Pure Landscapes: Alfred Sisley, 1875-79
At some time during the winter of 1874-75, the Sisleys moved from Louveciennes to nearby Marly-le-Roi. With his experience painting in England fresh in his memory, it was here that Sisley reached his...
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Fan Club: painted fans in European art 1
This weekend’s pair of articles looks at a form of painting which rose from almost nothing in Europe to being popular among the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists during the 1880s, but which has...
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Fan Club: painted fans in European art 2
In the first of these two articles about European fine art painting on fans, I showed how, between 1874 and 1879, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro had started making these unusual works, and met with...
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The Divine Comedy: Paradise 4 The just and the contemplative
As they journey through heavenly Paradise, Dante and Beatrice move upwards from the shell containing Mars to the next containing Jupiter. Gustave Doré (1832–1883), Jupiter, Paradiso Canto 18 (c 1867),...
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Work in Progress: JMW Turner’s landscapes
In the early nineteenth century, Britain was blessed with two major landscape painters, John Constable and JMW Turner. Not only were they contrasting personalities, but their painting methods were very...
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Visual Riddles: Puzzles for the people
By 1895, paintings with unresolved narrative had become popular and widely discussed. Themes for these included relationships between men and women, the ‘fallen woman’, the ‘kept woman’, unhappy...
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Pure Landscapes: Camille Pissarro, 1880-84
During the winter of 1879-80, Camille Pissarro was improving his printmaking skills in company with Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt, in the hope that he might break into this potentially lucrative market....
View ArticleCommenting on older articles temporarily disabled
Because of ongoing high-volume attacks on this blog by comment spam, I regret that I have had to disable commenting on older articles for this weekend. I apologise for this, but I’m currently having to...
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Pure Landscapes: Alfred Sisley, 1880-84
In 1880, Alfred Sisley and his family were on the move again, to the area of Moret-Sur-Loing, on the eastern edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau and the banks of the rivers Loing and Seine, which was...
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Virtuoso Performance: glass in paintings 1
There’s something very special about the realistic depiction of glassware in paintings. Not only is it one of the great technical challenges, but it’s also an excellent demonstration of an artist’s...
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