The curious story of the countess who rode naked through the city of Coventry to win its people a cut in taxes, and Wanda of Kraków.
Leighton
The Greeks destroy Troy, then sail away until caught in gales. Sheltering off Thrace Achilles ghost demands human sacrifice.
Byron, no stranger to forbidden love, swam across the Dardanelles in 1810, retracing the strokes of the legendary Leander who died trying to reach his lover Hero.
John Crome, a quiet innovator and founder of the Norwich School, Frederick Sandys, Thomas Girtin and others in Norfolk and Lincoln.
Cameo views of landscapes were common practice during the Renaissance, and also had value in locating the primary view.
When he returned to London from Italy in 1921, he became increasingly distressed with the advent of modernism, and died the following year, a century ago today.
He died a century ago, perhaps the last painter to paint art for art’s sake, avoiding narrative or meaning. Paintings from the first half of his career.
His paintings are set in mediaeval times, with tales of chivalry, or in ‘Regency’ times, with tricorn hats and jovial men selling ribbons door-to-door.
Often considered a Pre-Raphaelite, with common themes, he was an academic outsider whose photo-real paintings are finely crafted fantasies.
Two specialists in the sub-genre, John Godward and John Singer Sargent, show us how to chill out in their paintings.
The Eclectic Light Company 