Before the 19th century, most paintings of deserts were imaginary. Then artists started to paint them at first hand. Paintings up to 1864.
Gérôme
From the shadowed silhouette painted by the legendary Dibutades to paintings of families involved in shadow play.
When he returned from training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1886, he painted en plein air in an Impressionist style.
From panoramas to wide-angle views, the optical effects of Naturalist paintings, depth-of-field effects, and loss of depth through a telescope.
With Claude Monet as his mentor, he painted in thoroughly Impressionist style. Also the author of the most influential contemporary account of Impressionism in English.
Two young men cast adrift on the River Seine, a king having his hair cut, and one of the finest and most haunting paintings of Psyche.
He started painting popular equestrian scenes and social realist works, but after the Franco-Prussian War turned increasingly to old French history.
In 1814, following the restoration of the Spanish monarchy, Goya painted four works showing the uprising of 1808. One of these is now a major work of the European canon.
Examples from Gustave Moreau, Georges Clairin, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Paul Nash, Joseph Stella, and Nikolai Astrup.
Three paintings within 5 years, usually claimed to be responses to the Dreyfus Affair. But one was much more about modern art and photography.
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