Candles in Candlemas, as votives, at pardons and funerals, and snuffed out as part of excommunication. Used in sorcery, allegory, and Vanitas.
El Greco
Looking at paintings that are maps, and maps that are paintings, including Leonardo da Vinci’s, and the first map of Australia from 1547.
Long before any person took to the air, artists were already imagining World Views of major land battles and the countryside around them.
A grisaille turned into a trompe l’oeil, symphonies in white, making the transition to oil paints, an exercise for pupils, and vibrant primary colours.
Should chiaroscuro paintings show much in the way of colour, given that in the dark only the rods in our retinas function, giving us monochrome vision?
Completes this tour of the painter’s palette, with well-known greens, then the essential blacks and whites. Examples from Michelangelo to Vincent van Gogh.
From Botticelli’s map of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ to Vermeer’s fine-detailed depictions of decorative wall hangings.
Some works by artists of the Spanish Golden Age, including El Greco, Jusepe de Ribera, Zurbarán, and a guest appearance from Rubens and polychrome wood carving.
From Jan van Eyck’s trompe l’oeil, through Tanner’s fiery cross, to the modern young Polish woman of Jacek Malczewski.
A whirlwind trip through the history of compositional chiaroscuro, from the Renaissance, through Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, to Rembrandt.
The Eclectic Light Company 