Hardly painted before 1800, there has since been a succession of brilliant paintings of this story. Its focus has changed, from the tension as Oedipus tries to answer the riddle, to the femme fatale.
Ingres
The anger of Achilles almost brought the Greek war against Troy to a grinding halt. But is Homer’s account fair, or was there more to it?
Mentor to Gustave Moreau, his brief career showed his brilliance. Claimed by Ingres to be ‘the Napoleon of painting’.
He took the Salon of 1864 by storm, but was barely noticed with 2 more paintings the following year. Why?
He built his career from scratch three times, but today is known for his paintings of fashionable women. There is more to his art than that.
Concluding the analysis of narrative paintings showing Andromeda’s rescue from sacrifice to Cetus, the sea monster.
The last of the great classical narrative painters, his huge canvases explored lesser-known tales from Greece, Rome, and Scotland.
Portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Kauffmann, and others show extensive brushstrokes.
The period 1700 to 1850 saw the introduction of the first modern pigments, such as Prussian blue and emerald green, which started to transform paintings.
