By the end of the 19th century, 80% of those in Europe lived in towns and cities, drawn there by the promise of material riches that were not available to them in the country. This new series explores what they faced.
painting
A grand castle kitchen, the element fire, Vermeer’s milkmaid, a witch’s kitchen for Faust, a rotund cardinal tasting the sauce, and in a humble apartment in London.
A deer substituted for the sacrifice of Iphigenia, as companions for the sorceresses Medea and Circe, in Bonnard’s rural idyll, Rosa Bonheur’s wildlife portraits, and others.
The bard is torn limb from limb by frenzied bacchantes, leaving his head and lyre to float down the River Hebrus and over to the shores of Lesbos.
Further collaborations with Rubens, including one of the finest series of paintings in the European canon, the Five Senses, from 1617-18.
Son of Pieter the Elder, brother of Pieter the Younger, and father of Jan the Younger, collaborator with Rubens and others in some of the finest paintings of the 16th-17th centuries.
With Bonnard inside Marthe’s bathroom for some mirror play, exuberant decor, and her soaking in the tub.
From his first intimate interior with Marthe in 1898, a selection of the finest of Bonnard’s paintings of domestic interiors to 1946.
Short summaries of each of the articles in this series looking at the reality of life and work in the country from 1500 to the early 20th century.
Hard manual labour and human shields in the First World War, before Tennis at Newport, Jack Dempsey boxing, and a final Summer Fantasy.
