From the earliest still life paintings, many were designed not just to look realistic, but to deceive the viewer. Examples from van Eyck to the 20th century.
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In a succession brawls, officers of the law try to arrest Don Quixote, but are dissuaded. When the knight wants to ride off, he’s bound and loaded onto an ox cart in a cage.
From Church’s view of Niagara, Bierstadt in the Sierra Nevada, to two early landscape views of Ferdinand Hodler.
From Tivoli, near Rome, in 1757, through the Alps with Wolf and Turner, to remote Albania as seen by Edward Lear, artist and poet.
Before the 1880s, Whistler’s landscapes were very painterly, painted alla prima, showed views later featured by Impressionists, and even used wooden panels of the same size.
How on earth could three workmen preparing the wooden floor of an artist’s studio be vulgar? And how could that change a realist into an Impressionist?
The birth of his first son who looked able to survive, important commissions, Deputy Director of Painting at the Royal Academy, and Painter to the King at last.
Four centuries of paintings of tables laid up ready for the consumption of food, with several variations. From Clara Peeters to the modern burger.
The judge’s young daughter is in love with one of his footmen, who isn’t who he might appear. Two women play a trick on Don Quixote, and the barber wants his brass basin back.
Major paintings from the last four years of his life, including his final visit to the commedia dell’arte, an unusual Judgement of Paris, and a shop sign.
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