Two sets of triplets fight outside the city of Rome acting as proxies for two warring cities. One survivor at the end demonstrates his loyalty by patriotic sacrifice. But which side was David on?
painting
A classic legend of self-sacrifice, in which a single Roman soldier defended a bridge against a whole army until it was demolished, and Rome was saved from the Etruscans.
Largely self-taught, in the early 19th century stood alongside Constable and Turner. Prolific painter of the countryside, with wonderful oil sketches, and farm animals.
As Paul Cézanne reached the end of his Impressionist phase, he started painting foliage using patterned brushstrokes, his ‘constructive stroke’.
Before about 1870, no one questioned that cast shadows should appear grey, without any change in colour. The Impressionists disagreed.
Walnuts providing food, fine wood, and a drying oil used as an alternative to linseed; almonds that may have a high cyanide content, but are still eaten. Paintings from Piero to Bonnard.
Odysseus is warned about the Sirens, who lure ships’ crews to their deaths. After negotiating their threat, they sail past Scylla and Charybdis, but all his crew are lost in shipwreck, and he ends up with Calypso for 7 years.
A giant roc’s egg, a Punch and Judy show, a train of camels, emigrants leaving the Scottish highlands, a massive canon, and a firing squad.
Some of the strange things seen on the beach, from racing sandyachts in 1608, to mermaids and mermen three centuries later.
Brilliant, painting over 4,000 oil paintings in little more than 15 years, arrested as a French spy, and finally succumbed to bouts of heavy drinking and mounting debts.
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