In the latter half of the 19th century, a new narrative form developed, primarily among British painters: the open narrative, or problem picture.
history of painting
A glimpse inside Botticelli’s studio, an artist who foresaw his own death, an unusual Birth of Venus, the Ship Fools, and more painted stories from 1922.
When he returned to London from Italy in 1921, he became increasingly distressed with the advent of modernism, and died the following year, a century ago today.
He died a century ago, perhaps the last painter to paint art for art’s sake, avoiding narrative or meaning. Paintings from the first half of his career.
Two paintings by van Gogh, and others show open fires and stoves heating homes and other places up to 1930.
Paintings of open fires and stoves from 1565 to 1884 show how we lived through the winter before central heating.
Weaving turned yarn into fabric ready to make into garments. Associations include industry, passing time, fidelity, and the myth of Arachne.
Spinning natural fibres like wool into yarn was “women’s work” and had several connotations, here explored in paintings, and the origin of the word ‘spinster’.
Two artists painted panoramas full of miniature stories, which assembled into broad summaries of contemporary society: Frith and Ford Madox Brown.
He didn’t start painting in Impressionist style until about 1870, and a decade later was migrating towards what became Post-Impressionism.
The Eclectic Light Company 