Some of the most famous Impressionist paintings celebrated their role and their distinctive beauty, and how they show Mondrian becoming modern.
Monet
How oil paint can be used to create crisp and blurred edges, and sfumato. Implications of paint drying in some of Monet’s paintings, including his Grainstack series.
Derived from the dull yellow-green of chromium oxide, it was widely used by Impressionists, and well into the 20th century. Less toxic, but an environmental hazard.
A highly toxic arsenic salt, it succeeded Scheele’s green and was widely used until the 20th century, and finally discontinued in the 1960s.
The first modern synthetic pigment, from 1704. Adopted by Canaletto, Hogarth and many others since, and still offered in many paint ranges.
Painting captions give information you’d never get from looking at an image, and that in turn tells you even more. This series looks beyond mere images at the media behind them.
The red that lasts hundreds of years without fading, but it’s a highly toxic salt of mercury. Used in European paintings from the Romans to the late 19th century.
An umbrella Madonna, parasols of the nobility, in soirées on the beach, the rise of the white parasol and arrival of Japonisme, with Sargent and Sorolla, and in California.
Taking the train with Turner, William Powell Frith, Manet, and Claude Monet, who became something of a railway buff in the 1870s.
Spanish dancers, Madame X and scandal, Monet painting at Giverny, loose oil sketches, and a husband who became a surrogate dog.
The Eclectic Light Company 