With great interest in optics, depicting shade and shadows advanced in the 17th century, in paintings by van Honthorst, Judith Leyster, and above all Rembrandt, whose promoter was the father of Christiaan Huygens.
Molenaer
Start with genre paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, add Géricault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’, Courbet and Millet’s social realism, Manet and Lhermitte and you’ve made Naturalism.
The main driving forces were a rich diversity in both Dutch society and its painted themes, and the popularity of paintings among the republic’s citizens. Visual art thrived.
A dentist draws a tooth outside a church, a man reckons he holds the winning card, and the five most humorous interpretations of the senses.
Evoking music from a painting is a serious challenge, yet many artists have tried it. See if any of these work for you. From Lavinia Fontana to Degas.
The colours you see in paintings today may have faded badly from their originals. Examples of madder lake, smalt and indigo.
It’s unusual and difficult to make humorous paintings. Here’s a fine selection from Bosch, Brueghel and Rubens to the late 19th century.
If composers and performers can evoke visual images in music, why can’t painters return the complement? Lavinia Fontana, Vermeer, Menzel, Corot and others try.
One of the earliest synthetic pigments, it was widely used throughout Europe, India, and Asia. But like lead white, it is seriously toxic.
When it was first used as a pigment, this vegetable dye proved reliable and lightfast. Later technique, though, resulting in it fading. Why?
The Eclectic Light Company 