Starting from Manet’s notorious painting of a picnic in 1863, socialising at mealtime became a popular theme in paintings that weren’t in the least bit Impressionist.
history of painting
Technically challenging for painstaking Divisionist techniques, those who chose to depict reflections used studies to help, and Seurat was generally optically faithful. But the best of all was Théo van Rysselberghe.
Pioneering painter of industry in the West Point foundry, a superb series of landscapes across the lakes of the Alps, then Professor and first Director of the School of Fine Arts at Yale University.
His magnificent sacred Indian elephant, a polyptych painted over 5 years, an epic overview of Alexander the Great, and his phantasmagoric Jupiter and Semele in full detail.
Noli me tangere, Latin from the Vulgate for “don’t touch me”, are the opening words of Jesus when first seen by Mary Magdalene after his Resurrection. Here are the paintings.
Daughter of Jules Breton, a precocious artist who painted mothers and their children, and the fisher folk of the Opal Coast between Calais and Boulogne, and inspired Vincent van Gogh.
Hercules killing the Lernean Hydra, then a series of paintings of Salome that led to the femme fatale and a change in a well-known story. Finally a remarkable painting of Moses before discovery.
How Hogarth developed his painting and print narrative series from rough drawings. Examples of prints made after paintings by Mary Cassatt and Nikolai Astrup for different reasons.
Over 20 years of views over the lake from Hodler, with his Parallelist style, and culminating in some of the most sublime landscapes in European painting.
Paintings from 19th century masters including JMW Turner, the Swiss specialist Alexandre Calame, John Ferguson Weir, and Gustave Courbet in exile.
The Eclectic Light Company 