From an early painting of the blind Michelangelo to that of a nude courtesan before a Greek court, vision and visual fidelity was his recurrent theme.
Gérôme
Shackles of the night, in a well, as a rope ladder how Romeo meets Juliet, trussing up a robber, or hanging John Brown, the abolitionist.
Split a block of rock, craft your sculpture, break stones to dress the roads, be a blacksmith, sharpen your scythe, forge iron, or operate on a leg with your hammer.
An American fan of Vermeer who trained under Gérôme in Paris thought he’d discovered Vermeer’s optical secrets, and revived his defocussed style.
Dogs guarding the underworld, attributes of Diana, discovering Tyrian purple, gathering scraps under the Last Supper, and telling part of the story.
Paintings from Rembrandt’s second version to Cézanne and Franz von Stuck show the triumph of privileged male power.
Stories from Dante’s ‘Inferno’, the daughter of Jephthah, Phaedra, Ophelia, and Cleopatra, on the theme of the doomed woman.
Associated with Dionysus/Bacchus and his followers, it’s basically a staff decorated with plant matter. Seen here in different variants from Pompeii onwards.
How truth is associated with a well, where Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman, where to dispose of a rapist, and one of Paul Signac’s less successful paintings.
From depth cues used by painters in ancient times, through the many advances in the Northern Renaissance, to modern photographic projections.
The Eclectic Light Company 