Brunelleschi’s perspective projection was just a start. With optical instruments and later photography, painters exploited the visual effects of unusual projections.
Gérôme
An attribute of the goddess Athena (Minerva), it consists of the image of the face of Medusa on a shield or breastplate.
Neptune’s trident has three tines, while Pluto’s is a bident with only two. Or it could be a pitchfork. How to read them in paintings.
How to paint a landscape with faithful and coherent cast shadows, why most painters don’t do so, and a few get it wrong.
In the Roman arena, with a runaway slave, sparing the life of Daniel, at the feet of St Jerome and St Rufina, and snoring gently on the rug.
Leonardo da Vinci studied different types of shade and shadow, but recommended painters not to depict cast shadows in their paintings. This explains why.
Examples of putting figures in the spotlight from paintings of Tiepolo, David, Goya, Gérôme, Thomas Eakins, and others.
Using shadows to tell or add detail to a visual story. Examples by Robert Campin, Gérôme. William Holman Hunt, Lovis Corinth and others.
Paintings by William Blake, Elihu Vedder, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Léon Bonnat, James Tissot, Lovis Corinth and others.
The Mona Lisa illusion, Mary Magdalene with eyes red from tears or shut in ecstasy, closed from fatigue, or nearly blinded by light.
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