Fourteen major painters whose anniversaries I’ll celebrate or commemorate during this New Year, from George Bellows to Jacques-Louis David.
Fuseli
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.
King Nisus’ daughter betrays her father and his kingdom to King Minos of Crete. Theseus kills the Minotaur kept in the labyrinth on Crete, then abducts Ariadne to Naxos, where he abandons her.
The horse in chivalry, carrying Mazeppa or Haidamak insurgent, in the circus, racing riderless through Rome, and in Vernet’s studio.
Having mysteriously lost his first wife during their escape from Troy, Aeneas falls in love with Queen Dido of Carthage, a relationship doomed from the start.
Juno engages the Furies to drive Cadmus’ daughter Ino and her husband mad. With his dynasty ended, Cadmus and his wife end up as snakes.
Centred on Caspar David Friedrich, they were influenced by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Caspar Wolf, Philip James de Loutherbourg and Henry Fuseli.
More examples drawn from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and from “The Tempest”, that were exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere.
Found in Celtic and Germanic folklore, they first become popular in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and established a sub-genre in the 19th century.
Henry Fuseli, Ary Scheffer, Botticelli, William Blake and other artists paint the ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays and other literary sources.
The Eclectic Light Company 