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Asleep in the painting 3: Homeless
In the first article of this series, I showed a selection of paintings in which sleeping figures played a role in stories. In the second, we saw how sleeping rough became a sign of fatigue from work,...
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Goddess of the Week: Aphrodite (Venus)
Last week, I showed a small selection of the many paintings of the birth of Aphrodite (Venus), one of the strangest of the classical Greek myths, which has roots going back to the dawn of Western...
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Paradise Lost: Book 8 in paintings and illustrations
In the seventh book: Raphael, at the request of Adam, relates how and wherefore this World was first created; that God, after the expelling of Satan and his Angels out of Heaven, declared his pleasure...
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Is this a racist image, or is there a more complex account?
Last week, I came across a tweet expressing concern at racism in the star worn by those admitted to the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, particularly those holding the rank of...
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American Landscapes: a celebration 1
Today, Americans throughout the world celebrate their independence, so I thought you might all enjoy a small selection of paintings of American landscapes. Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935), The...
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American Landscapes: a celebration 2
In the first of these two articles to celebrate American Independence Day, I looked at landscape paintings of America predominantly painted during the nineteenth century. Today’s selection takes us...
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God of the Week: Eros (Cupid)
The ancient mind worked quite differently to ours. When it came to myths, it was perfectly content to accept two or more conflicting accounts without expecting any resolution as to which was true. This...
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Paradise Lost: Book 9 in paintings and illustrations
In the eighth book: Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge; Adam assents, and still desirous to detain...
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The Art of Anders Zorn 1: Portraits of success
The story of the career of Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860–1920) isn’t quite rags-to-riches, but he was born to an unmarried mother, and never even met his father, a Bavarian brewer who met her when...
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Skying: an introduction to a new series
Most landscape paintings consist of two elements: air in the sky, and earth in the land below. For many landscape artists, the sky isn’t just that blue bit that tops off the rest, but often the real...
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Painting the end of slavery
Last week I looked in detail at an image which was alleged to be racist. I had intended ending that with a brief look at some paintings which were anti-racist, but ran out of space. This article looks...
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In the limelight, paintings of the theatre 1: players
In some ways, painting the performing arts in theatre is every bit as strange as trying to paint music and concerts. A play tells its narrative in quite a different way, something you simply can’t...
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In the limelight, paintings of the theatre 2: audience
In the first of this pair of articles, I looked at a selection of paintings of scenes and people on the stage of the theatre. Today I turn to consider an even stranger topic: the audience (or, more...
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Goddesses of the Week: The Muses
The Muses (Greek Μοῦσαι Mousai) are the daughters of Mnemosyne, fathered by Zeus over a succession of nine nights which he spent with their mother. Their origin is doubted by sources other than Hesiod,...
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Paradise Lost: Book 10 in paintings and illustrations
In the ninth book: The Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and...
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The Art of Anders Zorn 2: Far places and near death
The young Swedish master watercolourist Anders Zorn (1860–1920) married in the autumn of 1885, then went on an extended honeymoon in Constantinople (modern Istanbul in Turkey). Just as he was painting...
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Skying: 1 Big skies, low countries
When early landscapes broke free from being small vignettes in figurative paintings and established themselves as a motif in their own right, the sky was important but a part of the whole. Giorgione...
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Is that a mandolin or a lute in that painting?
Sometimes getting a clear answer to a simple question involves a trip through the history of painting. When writing last week’s article about the paintings of Anders Zorn, I noticed that one of them...
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Silk and canvas: Japan and Europe in painting 1
This weekend, in this article and its conclusion tomorrow, I look at a relatively unknown but very special relationship in painting: that between Japan and Europe. On opposite sides of the globe, their...
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Silk and canvas: Japan and Europe in painting 2
In the first article in this series of two, I showed how European painting came to influence art in Japan before 1600. After that, Westernisation continued more gradually thanks to limited supplies of...
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