The star of Bethlehem from Giotto to Blake, a solar eclipse seen in Spain in 1905, Donati’s comet, and two impossible events with the sun and moon together in the sky.
Giotto
Visiting the ‘rottenpockets’ full of tormented souls guilty of pimping, seduction, flattery, selling church privileges, nepotism, fortune-telling, and corruption in public office.
Painting onto dry plaster using ‘secco’ isn’t durable, so ‘buon fresco’ was devised to apply paint to wet plaster instead. The technique is complex, painstaking, and resulted in the death of some of its exponents.
How ancient Egyptians painted women white and men more swarthy in colour. Separately, colour coding of devils brought similar distinctions.
The Roman goddess Minerva, the Greek statesman Solon, King Solomon, the three Magi, a ‘philosopher’ of Enlightenment, a scientist with a microscope, and the School of Athens.
In Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, animals charmed by Orpheus, the story of Rebecca and Eliezer, and accompanying the three Magi to the Nativity.
More important than perspective projection are cues including depth order, relative size, height in the picture plane, and aerial perspective.
Depicted as a physical place full of demons, torment and eternal suffering, and a deterrent to all those who commit sins on earth.
The hard road to realism: development and propagation of knowledge, how to apply it in paintings, and its benefit on visual art.
The meaning of one arm raised depends on the position of the fingers: is it an index finger pointing to heaven, or a sign of benediction?
The Eclectic Light Company 