From Pisanello and Dosso Dossi to William Holman Hunt and Richard Dadd: paintings showing butterflies.
Hunt
In the 19th century, readers enjoyed detective and ‘mystery’ novels. From 1850, artists like William Holman Hunt and Berthold Woltze tried the same in paint.
Four months being bitten to death by midges, then a winter of immersing the model in a bath of tepid water. This masterwork didn’t come easy for anyone.
How Samuel Palmer used ink in paintings, and some fine work using the milk protein casein, by Gustav Klimt and others.
He became the most influential critic of painting in Britain, providing the Pre-Raphaelites with strong support. But that proved capricious, and eventually destructive to landscape painting.
The seven painted stories, with paintings by Mei, Millais, Leighton, Botticelli, Stillman, and Lancret, and links to each article.
Three brothers murder their sister’s lover. A grisly story turned into a poem by John Keats, and a formative painting for the Pre-Raphaelites, and others.
Was painting ‘invented’ by the maid of Corinth? What is ‘shadow play’, and how have painters extended it to religious works? A short history of shadows in painting.
From Arcimboldo’s vegetable portrait to the height of Impressionism with Monet and Pissarro, some of the finest paintings of the season.
In the nineteenth century, with the decline of patronage and changed art markets, fables become more popular among painter, at least before they gained patrons.
