Painting onto dry plaster using ‘secco’ isn’t durable, so ‘buon fresco’ was devised to apply paint to wet plaster instead. The technique is complex, painstaking, and resulted in the death of some of its exponents.
Gallen-Kallela
Example paintings showing instantaneous, multi-image, multi-frame and polymythic narrative, from Poussin to Waterhouse.
More secular stories from Belgian coal mines, the Kalevala, Nabi public gardens, family life, to the 12 panels of the Ghent Altarpiece and Japanese woodblock prints.
Interior design by the wives of Carl Larsson (Sweden), LA Ring (Denmark), Nikolai Astrup (Norwegian) and others.
Boarding a canoe to shoot a swan in the Underworld, war canoes north of Vancouver Island, and the Canadian painter-canoeist Tom Thomson.
Beards on Father Time, river gods, God the Father, ancient mariners, and lots and lots of artists, especially the Nabis.
Looking back at the art of the nineteenth century, there was a large section devoted to Impressionism, but acclaimed Symbolist and other paintings too.
Easily told in words, stories are harder to paint. Here are five main methods used, explained and shown in examples from the masters.
Many of the greatest and most important European works of art are painted on walls or ceilings. Explains secco, fresco, and how they influence the result.
A look back at some of the series and some surprises which you might have missed over the last year.
The Eclectic Light Company 