Children on the cabbage patch, those toiling with the potatoes, digging beetroots, and a couple of unusual paintings with cucumbers and the true vegetable gardener.
Arcimboldo
Come leaf-peeping with painters from Samuel Palmer in the Weald of Kent, to Julian Alden Weir’s autumn rain.
Examples of surreal visual art from Bosch in about 1500, through Piranesi’s Imaginary Prison, Richard Dadd, to Félix Vallotton in 1892.
A parrot, coral, snuffed-out candles, human skulls, worn-out boots, a bottle of poison and a syringe: all objects in still life paintings.
Until the seventeenth century, still life paintings were occasional curiosities, From the Romans and Hans Memling to the early Dutch Golden Age the genre developed steadily.
In the century from 1560, many artists painted allegories of the four elements of the classical world: earth, air, water and fire. Here are some fine examples.
Here, the rain comes down in sheets, with snow and large hailstones. First an encounter with the three-headed monster dog Cerberus, then a chat with an old acquaintance.
Derived from books of hours, paintings of the four seasons started to appear in the late 16th century. Here are Arcimboldo, de Momper, and the Brueghels.
From Arcimboldo’s vegetable portrait to the height of Impressionism with Monet and Pissarro, some of the finest paintings of the season.
How Vertumnus tried to trick Pomona into loving him, then told her a threatening story. Neither worked: it was being himself that won her in the end.
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