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.
Gérôme
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!
Pygmalion carves an ivory statue of the perfect woman, and prays to Venus for a bride in its likeness. When he showers the statue with his kisses, it turns into the woman he wanted.
Views from outside looking up and in, including David and Bathsheba, Romeo and Juliet, an early plein air landscape, and Goya’s majas.
Threshing cut cereal using flails, horses towing a roller, oxen trampling the corn, a sledge, a hand-cranked machine, and a large threshing machine. With Monet’s grainstacks.
King Candaules killed, Phryné acquitted of impiety, Musidora watched while bathing, a nude on a beach, and Bonnard’s partner Marthe.
Polyphemus watching the naked Acis, King David watching Bathsheba, two old elders watching Susanna bathing, each of them voyeurs.
The stories of Cambyses the corrupt judge, Phryne charged with impiety, the judgement of Solomon, the Tichborne Trial, and several others.
Ridden by Napoleon, crossing Australian desert, walking on the beach at Aqaba, on the streets of Tbilisi, in North Africa and Arabia.
The Eclectic Light Company 