Modern interpretations of the adorations of the shepherds and the three kings or magi, from William Blake to Sichulski’s triptychs in 1938.
Bastien-Lepage
Barefoot and sometimes surprising, as Christ washes the disciples’ feet, and other feet are missing altogether. Barefoot means poverty too.
Only the gods wore sandals in the ancient world. Then the state of your footwear told much about you, with fashion opting for the outrageously impractical.
Paintings of open fires and stoves from 1565 to 1884 show how we lived through the winter before central heating.
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.
Completing this river cruise, from Canaletto’s view of Westminster, through a Frost Fair, to John Constable’s Headlight Castle.
Paintings of the death of Ophelia, from the first by Delacroix in 1838 to an etching from 1889. The most popular scene which happens entirely off-stage.
Paintings showing the ragged tatters work by peasants and labourers, from social realism and Naturalism between 1850-90.
The shepherds become more real and tatty from the Renaissance and Giorgione to Murillo and Bastien-Lepage.
When he returned from training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1886, he painted en plein air in an Impressionist style.
The Eclectic Light Company 