Clik here to view.
The Wanderer in paintings 3
In the first of these three articles examining the Wanderer theme in paintings, I looked at its origin with Hieronymus Bosch, and its development by Caspar David Friedrich and his pupil Carl Gustav...
View ArticleClik here to view.
God of the Week: Zeus (Jupiter)
Zeus (Greek Ζεύς, Roman Jupiter) is the senior of the deities of Olympus, married to his sister Hera (Juno). A son of the primordial deities Kronos and Rhea, he led the revolt against the Titans and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Art of Anders Zorn 6: Presidents and Saunas
Late in 1898, Anders Zorn (1860–1920) and his wife packed their bags and sailed for America, where they arrived just before Christmas. The following year, he was to paint more of his most famous and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Skying 5: When near Rome
While John Constable and JMW Turner were skying in Britain, the rest of Europe was in the throes of a revolution in landscape painting. Every aspiring landscape artist packed their brushes and easel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’– introduction to a new painting series
Following John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, the next major work of literature which I’m going to tackle here is the next milestone in English writing: Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which has nothing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’– its illustrators
Edmund Spenser’s first published poem, The Shepheardes Calender (1579), was printed with a full set of integrated woodcut illustrations. Given their beneficial effect on book sales, it’s surprising...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The cypress tree in paintings 1
The lore of trees is a large and absorbing subject which helps you read the landscape and its paintings. Visit many old churches in Britain and you’ll find an ancient yew in the yard, but across much...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The cypress tree in paintings 2
I ended the first article of this two-part series with Vincent van Gogh’s first paintings of cypress trees, made during his stay in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole mental asylum at Saint-Rémy near Arles....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Goddess of the Week: Hera (Juno)
Like her brother and spouse Zeus/Jupiter, Hera (Greek Ἥρᾱ, Latin Juno) is a child of the Titans Kronos and Rhea. Acting as a matronly Queen of the deities of Olympus, she is normally associated with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Art of Anders Zorn 7: The White House and legacies
By the early years of the twentieth century, the Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860–1920) was a portraitist of international repute, and a much-appreciated painter and print-maker. But by his own...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Skying 6: Pre-Impressionism
While many landscape painters headed south to paint under Roman skies, a slow revolution was burning in the north, on the plains of the Low Countries, along the north French coast, and in the Île de...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Faerie Queene 1: The Redcrosse Knight and Una
Spenser’s Faerie Queene opens with a four-verse proem which invokes the Muse, in imitation of the opening of the English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, and refers the epic to the Queen of England,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A History of Rome in Paintings: 1 Trojan Origins
When Claude Lorrain was setting out to be one of Europe’s greatest landscape painters, he was fortunate enough to be employed as a servant by Agostino Tassi, who in turn had been a pupil of Paul Bril....
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Swedish Country: In Memoriam Anders Zorn (1860-1920)
One hundred years ago today, one of the most successful Swedish artists of all time, and a leading portrait painter of his day, Anders Zorn died, at the age of only sixty. In this concluding article I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A History of Rome in Paintings: 2 Etruscans
If the origin of Rome and the Romans is rather murky, that of the Etruscans is a total mystery. Around 800 BCE, the time of the origin of Greek mythology, and the start of the formation of Rome, when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
God of the Week: Poseidon (Neptune)
Poseidon (Greek Ποσειδῶν), who becomes the Roman Neptune, was the son of the primordial deities Kronos and Rhea, making him a brother of Zeus and Hera, and one of the senior deities of Olympus. The god...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Skying 7: Impressionism
It’s only when you look through hundreds of Impressionist and Naturalist paintings – the movements which dominated European painting in the latter half of the nineteenth century – that you realise how...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Faerie Queene 2: The lion and seven deadly sins
In the first episode, the Redcrosse Knight set out on a mission to kill a dragon for his Queen. Accompanying him is the fair lady Una with her white lamb. After killing the monster Errour, they both...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A History of Rome in Paintings: 3 Foundation
Whether the first Romans were Greek, Trojan or Etruscan, legend holds it that Aeneas who founded a city which he named Lavinium after his second wife. His son Ascanius went on from there to found...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Here be Dragons in paintings
Pull up an illuminated mediaeval map, and where its author runs out of knowledge you’ll see drawings of fearsome beasts bearing the legend hic sunt dracones – here be dragons. This long weekend I look...
View Article