Degas’ photos of women bathing, Gérôme supporting photography as a fine art, Pierre Bonnard’s snaps of Marthe, and the extreme realism of Ellen Altfest.
Gérôme
An artist’s workshop with his assistant, several sculptors working with their models, watchmakers in Madrid, an assistant in a print shop, artisans, tinker and repairer.
Example paintings showing instantaneous, multi-image, multi-frame and polymythic narrative, from Poussin to Waterhouse.
Pierrot, Harlequin and other characters from the early professional theatre seen in paintings by Watteau, Goya and others.
After his divorce, his son the King of Rome. Disaster on the retreat from Moscow, and exile on the island of Saint Helena. The rapid rise of Napoleon III and his military failure against Prussia in 1870.
Emperor Napoleon I, a Corsican of Italian origin who died on a remote British island in the South Atlantic. Paintings of his early military successes, and the Empress Joséphine before their divorce.
Although of ancient origin, it took 7 centuries for Europeans to use them to cover the floor. They can be exotic in chinoiserie, luxuriant, worn and threadbare, or vibrant.
How the rich paid to walk on planks to cross muddy streets, and hussars helped ladies over mud ruts, children at play, roads in London and Leeds, and a cheeky ploughboy.
The origin of werewolves, early psychiatry, colourful Venice, a coast of foreboding, a brilliant plein air nocturne, London’s best paintings, visual truth, and more.
By William Blake, Gérôme, Fritz von Uhde, Maurice Denis, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, and Joseph Stella. Merry Christmas!
The Eclectic Light Company 