Six of the best stories and the finest paintings from the first half of Metamorphoses, from Daphne’s transformation into the laurel, to Echo and Narcissus.
Corot
Who is the wanderer and painter in Thomas Fearnley’s landscapes? Does he have any deeper purpose, or was he just a graphical signature?
The grandson of the founder of Thebes suffers a grisly fate when he stumbles across the goddess Diana bathing naked.
Not only did he help advance the mainstream Impressionists and their careers, but he led the way in his paintings. Happy 200th birthday!
Born two centuries ago, his paintings anticipated and influenced those of the mainstream Impressionists. He even painted from a floating studio.
His meticulous paintings of farm animals transformed landscape practice, and created a new sub-genre.
His visit to Italy resulted in some of the finest paintings of Venice, several completed shortly before his untimely death.
Was he really one of the most important French painters of the nineteenth century?
Some of the Impressionists did paint (possibly) narrative works. But they didn’t always work out.
We still associate brushmarks with sketchiness, speed of painting, spontaneity, bravura, and panache – and smooth paint surfaces, assembled from multiple layers and glazes, as being heartless mechanical essays in technique.
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