The Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds and the Magi, painted by Bastien-Lepage, Murillo, Hieronymus Bosch, Edward Burne-Jones, and others.
Bosch
Paintings by Michelangelo, Hieronymus Bosch, Grünewald, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Paolo Veronese, Jan Brueghel the Elder and others.
Hephaistos or Vulcan in classical myth, cheated on by Aphrodite/Venus, and as creator of Pandora. In Bosch’s Last Judgement, and elsewhere.
Adam and Eve during a happy moment before the Fall. Countless naked men and women cavorting with giant fruit. Gambling and music seen as sure ways to hell. Delving into Bosch’s details.
Inside its restrained and modest grisaille cover there are three panels showing the Garden of Eden, a pleasure garden, and the garden of Hell.
Composition and effects of different types of varnish, with its visual effects, and how it can make a painting unreadable when it contains accumulated dirt.
Ink, soot suspended in water, making the transition from drawings into paintings. The secret of shellac. Casein, originally from sour milk, as a binder in some vast murals.
The star of Bethlehem from Giotto to Blake, a solar eclipse seen in Spain in 1905, Donati’s comet, and two impossible events with the sun and moon together in the sky.
In Gérôme’s early success The Cock Fight, Rembrandt’s Night Watch, Murillo’s Adoration of the Shepherds, and many farmyard paintings.
Guards throwing dice in the Crucifixion, gambling in Bosch’s vision of Hell, in a dingy tavern, losing an entire estate, and being played by young street urchins.
