His four best paintings viewed in their historical context, and consideration of the constraints that he painted under. What if?
history of painting
It was Vincent van Gogh who first showed rain streaks, in a painting made just a few days before his death. They’ve since become a standard visual device.
In the late 19th century painters turned attention to depicting rainy conditions, with Caillebotte’s closely observed views, and effects on colour.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, his people are real and his depictions full of grace and calm. His stylistic exaggerations and faired forms work to create portraits and nudes which we can really enjoy.
He was a friend of the Divisionist Georges Seurat, but in the late 1880s became a strict Symbolist. A small but fine selection of his paintings.
His most famous painting, ‘Work’, inspired by the ideas of Thomas Carlyle, and a possibly unique example of multiplex narrative after William Hogarth.
The leading Saracen knights are at one another’s throats, over stolen swords, stolen horses, even in which order they should fight one another to settle their disputes.
Towards the end of the Great War, he spent a period in Nice, with his partner Jeanne Hébuterne. His only solo exhibition was closed by the police within hours of its opening.
Bad girls whose beautiful voices lured sailors to their deaths, so that the women could eat them. Paintings by Etty, Moreau, Waterhouse, Rae, Nash and others.
Like all the worst men, satyrs were addicted to music, wine and women. Paintings by Piero, Claude, Rubens, Vedder, Moreau and others.
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