Suppressed by the Reformation, narrative painting didn’t really get going in Britain until the early 18th century, but made up for lost time.
Blake
This play, responsible for the burning down of the Globe Theatre, tells the story of Henry’s divorce from Queen Katherine and the birth of Queen Elizabeth I.
Based on Plutarch’s Lives, this play contains some of the most memorable quotations in English, and has been painted quite frequently.
A story of jealousy, adultery, treachery and race, which resulted in an early professional actress in a lead, and the first major lead for a black actor.
Titania, Queen of the Fairies, falls in love with Bottom, whose head has been turned into that of an ass. All ends well, after a farcical play within a play/
As the tragedy moves relentlessly to the deaths of most of its characters, paintings by William Blake, Ford Madox Brown, and Benjamin West tells its story.
Paints using glue as their binder, instead of oil, were popular in the early Renaissance before being replaced by oils. William Blake revived them around 1800.
Its two scenes with witches are most famous, and often confused. There’s more to this play, though, and other scenes in fine paintings.
Well known from language, the scarlet woman should be easy to read in paintings. But all that is scarlet isn’t who you’d expect.
The other half of the festival of Easter has been painted far less. Yet without Resurrection, Easter and all Christian belief would be worthless.
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