Fourteen major painters whose anniversaries I’ll celebrate or commemorate during this New Year, from George Bellows to Jacques-Louis David.
David
A brilliant pupil of David who won the Prix de Rome, he survived the Revolution unscathed, and even won a battle with one of his models when she refused to pay him.
Allegories using classical deities, by Tintoretto and Rubens. Accounts of how the Sabine women brought peace to Rome, and peace treaties of Charlemagne and Barbarossa.
Deathbed scenes of Dido, Pyramus and Thisbe, King Arthur, Queen Elizabeth I, General Wolfe, Marat, GĂ©ricault, Camille Monet, and a posthumous portrait that proved the death of Klimt.
Did Sappho really throw herself from the Leucadian Cliff when she was jilted by Phaon the local ferryman, or was Ovid ridiculing the story?
The stories of Cambyses the corrupt judge, Phryne charged with impiety, the judgement of Solomon, the Tichborne Trial, and several others.
The consequences of pride, when all 14 of Niobe’s children are slaughtered by Apollo and Diane, but she’s unrepentant to the last.
Charlotte Corday made no attempt to flee the scene of her murder of Marat, was arrested and guillotined three days later. Was she the real heroine?
On 13 July 1793, a young woman from Normandy stabbed the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat in the chest and killed him. Was Marat really the hero?
Played by warriors including Paris of Troy and Achilles, also by Saint Cecilia, angels, and a siren. And with only one string left, in Watts’ allegory of Hope.
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