A prolific painter of everything from landscapes to mythology, he trained in Karlsruhe, travelled widely, but struggled to establish his art in the years to 1885.
narrative
Human in their upper body, and fish from the waist down, these aren’t sirens at all, but have their own mythology in many traditions.
When the centaur Nessus tried to abduct Hercules’ wife, he was impaled by an arrow. He set up the later death of the hero, who was destroyed by poison in his own arrow.
Paintings continue with three sketches by Honoré Daumier, and set pieces by Hispaleto, telling the misadventures of Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
Enormously popular across Europe, Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ led to some fine narrative paintings, but why so few even in the 19th century?
Pitched battles at the weddings of Hippodame and Pirithous, and Andromeda and Perseus. The Trojan War resulting from the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, and turning water into wine with Veronese.
How Hercules and Achelous came to fight one another over the hand of Deianira, resulting in one of the river god’s horns being wrenched off to become the Horn of Plenty.
Views from the inside of balconies looking out and down, from German Romanticism, through Morisot and Caillebotte, to Corinth and Pierre Bonnard.
Views from outside looking up and in, including David and Bathsheba, Romeo and Juliet, an early plein air landscape, and Goya’s majas.
Stories of shape-shifters who could morph readily into animals and even inanimate objects. Includes Proteus, Erysichthon’s daughter, and leads on to Achelous himself.
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