Parrots in still life paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, accompanying a Turkish page, in English summer, or passing Pierre Bonnard in Saint Tropez.
Hodgkins
Rural depopulation as labour moved to work in city factories, dominance of larger suppliers in food markets, draining waterlogged land, and the development of the tractor.
Although not featured in classical myths, cats have several symbolic associations and their own fables. From a kept woman to a harem, and basking in the sunshine.
From Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, via the wooded countryside of Gainsborough and Constable, to the coast of Philip Wilson Steer.
Long before they were turned into chocolate, they were coloured, and hunted on Easter Sunday. Paintings by Claude Monet, Diego Velázquez, and others.
From changes in ploughs to the enclosure and farming of what had been open land, landscape paintings can tell us a lot about the history of the land.
More landscape views embedded in 19th and 20th century paintings, as a posthumous tribute to a colleague, or a context for a still life, perhaps.
Four centuries of paintings of tables laid up ready for the consumption of food, with several variations. From Clara Peeters to the modern burger.
A selection of paintings from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Ellen Altfest, a modern vanitas, and the fast food bodegone.
Seashells appear in Turner’s myths, Dyce’s fresco for Queen Victoria, twice in Elihu Vedder’s work, and in Odilon Redon’s. And a story from Rubens about seashells and colour.
The Eclectic Light Company 