From the start of the Eighty Years’ War with Habsburg Spain, through the Union of Utrecht, foundation of the East India Company, tulip mania, and abundant Rembrandts.
Bruegel
Typically by a road junction outside a town, they are a grim reminder of the brutal consequences of even petty crimes, and significant to the reading of paintings shown.
Once widespread across Europe and many other lands, they used to grind all the grain into flour, provide power to sawmills, make paper and more.
The Renaissance provided the tools of realist painting, but remained largely bound to religious and mythical motifs. Seventy years later, many new genres had appeared.
Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aelbert Cuyp, van Ruisdael, Caspar Wolf, Jongkind, Whistler and others of ice on rivers, canals, lakes and the sea. Brrrr.
Mow the grass, scatter it about, gather it in windrows, cock it, scatter then windrow it again, until it’s dry and ready to stack. How to make hay the hard way.
Arable farmers learned to rotate crops, to prevent loss of soil fertility. At the same time, land was enclosed to remove it from use for communal grazing.
An introduction to a new series tracing the history of the countryside in fine paintings. Explains why some English country lanes have so many twisting bends.
Yellow for harvest at the end of the dry summer. Also mixed with blues and greens, although sometimes not proving lightfast.
Companions to valkyries, accompanying the Wild Hunt, at the Crucifixion and executions, or the first sign of Spring?
The Eclectic Light Company 