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Here be Monsters in paintings
This is the second in a series of three articles looking at a selection of paintings of fearsome beasts from myth and legend. In the first, I looked at dragons. Today I broaden that to include monsters...
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Here be Orcs and Sea Monsters in paintings
In the two previous articles in this series, I have shown selections of paintings first of dragons and then of other monsters more generally. While land travel was high risk and adventurous until well...
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Goddess of the Week: Demeter (Ceres)
Under her Greek identity, Demeter (Δημήτηρ) is a rare find in paintings, where she is almost universally known as the Roman goddess Ceres, who’s so famous that she has been assimilated into English in...
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Skying 8: Post-Impressionism
Those who followed the Impressionists with newer styles of painting seldom seem to have skied, but several painted some of the most wonderful and radically innovative skies to be seen on canvas. In...
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The Faerie Queene 3: Duels and capture by a giant
In the second episode, the Saracen knight Sansloy abandoned the sorceror Archimago unconscious after their duel, and abducted Una after killing her guardian lion. The Redcrosse Knight has been led...
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A History of Rome in Paintings: 4 Kings
After the apotheosis of Romulus or whatever else accounted for his sudden disappearance, there was a brief interregnum during which Rome’s senators took it in turns to rule – for periods of just six...
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Swirling Strokes of Gaetano Previati (Symbolist painting)
Ever on the hunt for more Symbolist artists, I found a trail which led me to the magnificent paintings of the Italian artist Gaetano Previati (1852–1920), the subject of this all too short article. My...
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Harvest Home in paintings – the harvest
Outside of the winter, there are few times of the year when there aren’t crops for harvest. But in much of Europe and North America it’s this time, the end of the summer, that some of the most...
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Harvest Home in paintings – gleaners
In yesterday’s article, I showed a small selection of paintings of the main cereal harvest, several of which broached the subject of rural poverty. Whereas many paintings of the countryside give the...
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God of the Week: Hades (Pluto)
Hades (Greek ᾍδης) is a name more strongly associated with the place, the Underworld for classical Greeks, than the god who ruled it, who was also known as Plouton. The Romans transferred him as the...
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Skying 9: A brief history
Over the last couple of months, I have been looking at paintings dominated by the sky, and what John Constable and others called skying. This final article in the series tries to draw them all together...
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The Faerie Queene 4: Release and the Cave of Despair
In the third episode, at Duessa’s suggestion, the monster Orgoglio took the Redcrosse Knight alive and threw him into the dungeon of his castle. The knight’s attendant dwarf told Una of this, so they...
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A History of Rome in Paintings: 5 The last king’s downfall
The city of Rome has a turbulent history, which was perhaps bloodiest during the reigns of its seven kings, before it became a republic. Its seventh and last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was self-made,...
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From Toulouse to the Pyrenees in paintings
It’s one of the most spectacular journeys in Europe, to board a train, drive a car or – if your legs are up to it – to cycle from Toulouse south into the Pyrenees mountains. Each year, it’s a stage of...
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Hot off the press: reportage in painting 1
One of the great strengths of even early photography is its immediacy and visual reportage. Take a traditional film camera shot of any newsworthy story, and within a couple of hours you can have prints...
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Hot off the press: reportage in painting 2
In the first of these two articles looking at paintings which were made in sufficient time of a major newsworthy event to count as reportage, I looked mainly at paintings of large fires from the Dutch...
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Gods of the Week: Atlas, Prometheus and Epimetheus
There are many other primordial deities, Titans and their children who have rarely been featured in visual art. In this article, I feature three who have had their moments of fame, and are children of...
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A History of Rome in Paintings: 6 War with the Tuscans, and defending the...
The seventh and final king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, had sent envoys to announce his abdication from the throne and make unacceptable demands on the city. From this arose the Tarquinian Conspiracy,...
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The Faerie Queene 5: The Dragon
In the fourth episode, the Redcrosse Knight, still weak from his incarceration by Orgoglio, went to the Cave of Despair, where he almost ended up taking his own life, had Una not struck the knife from...
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Quiet Landscapes: watercolours of Eric Ravilious 1
It’s very unusual for a war artist to die in the conflict that they’re covering, but that’s what happened to the British artist Eric Ravilious (1903–1942): on 2 September 1942, he flew in one of three...
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