The humble garden snail, seldom painted with associated with death and Vanitas, evil, whiling time away, and the sensation of touch.
history of painting
Linked stories of Tiresias, the trans-gender soothsayer, Narcissus who fell in love with himself, and Echo who could only repeat what others said.
Two themes now largely forgotten: Christ’s descent into Limbo and Harrowing of Hell, and his supper at Emmaus.
Paintings by Jan van Eyck, Masaccio, Tintoretto and Delacroix with detailed explanations of their reading and background.
Essential pigments for the landscape artist: green earths, malachite, verdigris, copper resinate, Prussian green, viridian, and emerald green.
The fairy tale of the Frog Prince, the fable of The Frogs who Demand a King, frogs at the Fall of Man, and dangling from a kite tail above Strasbourg.
The Lycians turned into frogs when they refused the goddess Latona a drink of water, and the sorceress Medea accompanied by toads.
One of Ovid’s weirdest tales, in which Juno convinces the pregnant Semele to demand her lover Jupiter reveals himself, resulting in her death, caesarian section and his surrogate pregnancy.
Repoussoir through windows, doors, then invading the middle of the painting with Corot and Pissarro, before Cézanne inverted it altogether.
How repoussoir originated in figurative painting, and came to become a popular compositional technique for landscapes from Giorgione to Turner.
The Eclectic Light Company 