Modern landscape painting, since before the Impressionists, relies on oil sketches made in front of the motif. Was it Vernet who advised Valenciennes to adopt this practice?
Category Archive: Life
Three religious paintings, including two skilfully-told narratives, a history, and the only nude of his to have survived.
Faust and Mephistopheles attend the witches’ celebrations on the Brocken peak in the Harz Mountains – a wild night, it seems.
A major German painter in the late 19th century, he is often claimed to have been an Impressionist, but these works look very Naturalist to me.
Paintings from 1750 on didn’t show ‘Christian’ sibyls, but returned to their classical meaning. Then came Turner’s marvellous narrative landscapes.
From 1450-1650, paintings of ‘Christian sibyls’ who foretold the birth of Christ, became important motifs for painting. Here’s a selection.
He became the most influential critic of painting in Britain, providing the Pre-Raphaelites with strong support. But that proved capricious, and eventually destructive to landscape painting.
Claimed to be the only Austrian Impressionist, he didn’t start painting full-time until he was 43, and died twelve years later. Here are some superb paintings.
Unusual landscapes, from Barbizon through Impressionist to Symbolist. She died suddenly at the age of only 47, and is now being rediscovered.
He made friends with Rubens, who helped him improve his narrative painting, and them travelled to Italy, where he painted the first plein air oil sketches in European art.
The Eclectic Light Company 