Key factors making oil paint most suitable include its slow drying, wide range of viscosity, and robust paint layer. But it has its rules too.
da Vinci
Long before they were turned into chocolate, they were coloured, and hunted on Easter Sunday. Paintings by Claude Monet, Diego Velázquez, and others.
The Mona Lisa illusion, Mary Magdalene with eyes red from tears or shut in ecstasy, closed from fatigue, or nearly blinded by light.
Masaccio’s 20-panel polyptych, Bosch’s triptych, and one of the most substantial paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. Even Monet’s Grainstacks series.
Unfinished paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Bonington, Bazille, Bastien-Lepage, Moreau and others.
Tragic stories of great paintings that no longer look anything like their originals, from Leonardo da Vinci and William Blake.
Paintings that don’t look like they were intended to be, from Leonardo’s Last Supper, to Manet’s cut-up Execution of Emperor Maximilian.
The meaning of one arm raised depends on the position of the fingers: is it an index finger pointing to heaven, or a sign of benediction?
On the morning of 22 August 1911, he arrived to paint the Mona Lisa, but it had vanished from the wall of the Louvre. Who had stolen it?
From the fur-trimmed cloaks of Jan van Eyck, to the soft folds of Lisa Gherardini’s dress: clothing and fabrics painted in oils.
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