From Richard Parkes Bonington, through AW Hunt, John Brett, Edward Poynter, Delacroix, Rosa Bonheur, Daumier, Gustave Moreau, and Winslow Homer.
Delacroix
Where land, sea, and sky meet. Sought-after and hugely popular in fine weather, the forces of nature are most obvious in storms. The cradle of Impressionism and more modern painting.
The decline and fall of Medea, as her sorcery is used for murder, and she kills her own infant sons. Paintings by Delacroix, Turner, and others.
Classical history paintings are rarer than those of myth. Even fewer show the most anomalous of classical societies: the Spartans.
Who was Ovid, and how did he come to write so much on mythology? Illustrated with some fine paintings of his life by Poussin, Delacroix, and Turner.
The grandson of the founder of Thebes suffers a grisly fate when he stumbles across the goddess Diana bathing naked.
Mentor to Gustave Moreau, his brief career showed his brilliance. Claimed by Ingres to be ‘the Napoleon of painting’.
Moreau’s extraordinary paintings have been described as Symbolist, Decadent, even Surrealist. They are notoriously difficult to read – here is some help.
Delacroix’s famous painting of Marianne, personification of the French nation, does not stand alone. Here is a small collection.
Also a grim story of suicidal disembowelling, and a propaganda painting for Napoleon.
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