A nymph cursed by Hera to repeat the words just spoken to her, and a youth who falls in love with his own image. Together the result in some of the finest narrative paintings.
Cabanel
The Gauls took the whole city of Rome, apart from its Capitol, but were then effectively put under siege themselves. The city was looted and sacked.
Some of the greatest figurative artists including Botticelli, Titian, Poussin, Boucher, Ingres, Moreau, and Joseph Stella.
Millais’ wonderful painting of Ophelia wasn’t the first such work. From West and Delacroix to Rossetti and Bastien-Lepage, here she is.
Four years of landscapes, becoming increasingly painterly. Early views of major Impressionist themes around Paris and the coast at Étretat, over a decade before Monet.
The Second Circle of Hell, in which those whose sin was lust are blown by eternal storms. The story of Paolo and Francesca, and many wonderful paintings.
The very large Paris Salon of 1883 introduced the public and critics to a new and growing movement in painting. It wasn’t Impressionism or Post-Impressionism, though.
Eight of Cabanel’s most precocious and brilliant pupils. Only one won the Prix de Rome, and the others went on to develop Naturalist art. Was Cabanel the father of this new movement?
A precocious painter who was a favourite of Napoleon III, he taught at the École des Beaux-Arts for 25 years. Many of his students became Naturalists. Coincidence? Here’s his story and work.
Behind his traditional narrative paintings are his views on the Third Republic, the slaughter of the Paris communards in 1871, and the Dreyfus affair.
