Forgotten until revived in 2005, his paintings now fetch millions. Hauntingly empty, almost monochrome, and often with his wife facing away from the viewer.
history of painting
Giorgione’s Tempest, Cuyp’s Thunderstorm over Dordrecht, Delacroix, a prairie on fire, and viewing lightning safely indoors.
Jupiter’s bundle of thunderbolts that have survived into computer technology, lightning in great floods, in the destruction of Tyre, and the three witches in Macbeth.
Mud during the Franco-Prussian War, in Nordic countryside, and enveloping everything including the dead during the First World War.
How the rich paid to walk on planks to cross muddy streets, and hussars helped ladies over mud ruts, children at play, roads in London and Leeds, and a cheeky ploughboy.
From those run and staffed by religious orders around 1600 to the 19th century’s revolution in nursing, and dazzlingly white interiors with radiators.
By the late 19th century, presses were churning out posters promoting events and products. Some came to appear in paintings of Paris and other places.
Popularised with large-format colour printing in the middle of the 19th century, there appear in several paintings where they contribute to the reading.
How Daedalion was turned into a hawk, a wolf was turned into marble, King Ceyx and his wife became kingfishers, and Aesacus was turned into a diver.
Corot’s view from the Boboli Gardens, Thomas Cole, John Brett’s landscape masterwork, intimate view from local painters, and a portrait by Paul Sérusier.
The Eclectic Light Company 