Born near Florence in 1452, the Renaissance Man and polymath died 500 years ago when retired in France. A summary of his great artistic achievements.
Category Archive: Painting
A founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768, she was precocious, successful, commissioned by the royal family, and almost completely forgotten. She died 200 years ago, on 2 May.
Developed in the mid 1600s, pastels are often considered to be the ‘purest’ form of painting, in which pure pigment is applied to the ground.
From barrators, being hacked at by a pack of devils in their boiling tar, through hypocrites wearing habits weighted with lead, to thieves being tormented by snakes. Sheer hell.
From being staffage in landscapes, shepherds and their flocks became motifs in their own right, with the social realist of Millet, even Henri Regnault.
Shepherds and shepherdesses painted in stories, from classical myth, through the Bible and Christ’s nativity, to epic poetry, including Milton’s Paradise Lost.
All I wanted was a black and yellow chequered flag to signify quarantine. I thought the emoji was even better – a yellow reminder ribbon. How wrong I was.
Three exceptional paintings are dominated by geometrical forms. In one, a huge golden cylinder hangs in the night sky. Was this an innovative abstract painting?
One of the paintings he made in 1888 is quite unlike any other that he made in his career: The Talisman, which became an icon for the Nabis. Is it abstract?
Two final paintings, his striking portrait of Saint John the Baptist, and the highly controversial ‘Salvator Mundi’, the most expensive painting in the world.
The Eclectic Light Company 