Optical principles are straightforward, but can become extremely complex in practice. Examples from Jan van Eyck to Hodler and Signac.
Normann
Reflections seen in landscapes from Dürer’s pioneering watercolour, through Poussin and Turner to Monet, Sisley and Neo-Impressionists.
Staffage – people, animals, birds, carts and ships – make a big difference to many landscape paintings. Have you met the Wanderer too?
A selection of meals eaten outdoors, by the gods, in Boccaccio’s Decameron, Manet’s controversial luncheon, and by a boating party.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, steam trains and ships moved artists around, playing an important role in introducing masters to the south of France.
Titian died of the plague, and Austrian artists were badly affected by the influenza pandemic of 1918, losing both Klimt and Schiele.
With Edvard Munch launched in his career, Normann returned to painting the fjords of his native Norway.
Born in north Norway, trained in Germany, he mostly painted breathtaking views of fjords. But in 1892, he seized the opportunity to change the history of art, and became godfather to one of the world’s most famous paintings.
In the year ahead, Gustav Klimt, Ferdinand Hodler, Tintoretto, Egon Schiele, and several others: anniversaries which I will celebrate here.
The Norwegian landscape painter who loved his fjords invites Munch to Berlin, and causes a furore. It makes Munch’s career, and changes the history of art.
The Eclectic Light Company 