A summary history from 1700 to the 20th century, with examples of major paintings, and links to each of the detailed articles in this series.
Hogarth
Weaving turned yarn into fabric ready to make into garments. Associations include industry, passing time, fidelity, and the myth of Arachne.
Two artists painted panoramas full of miniature stories, which assembled into broad summaries of contemporary society: Frith and Ford Madox Brown.
Clocks aren’t commonly featured in paintings. Here are a precious from 1655 to 1853, from William Dyce and Rossetti to Hogarth and William Holman Hunt.
In a remarkable series of chiaroscuro paintings, he tells stories from the Enlightenment of science, then of the ‘invention’ of painting.
Two of Hogarth’s later narrative series: Four Time of the Day, and Marriage A-la-Mode, were key in his new British narrative painting.
Hogarth devised series of paintings to tell moral stories entirely visually. A Harlot’s Progress and A Rake’s Progress broke new ground in British if not European painting.
Blocked by church doctrine, cultural shortcomings, lack of training and a preference for hiring established artists from continental Europe, narrative painting started with James Thornhill.
Suppressed by the Reformation, narrative painting didn’t really get going in Britain until the early 18th century, but made up for lost time.
Well known from language, the scarlet woman should be easy to read in paintings. But all that is scarlet isn’t who you’d expect.
The Eclectic Light Company 