By the end of the 18th century, remains of Pompeii were being excavated and inspired painters to re-imagine life and death in the city.
Pompeii
When Pompeii was buried by debris from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, many fine Roman paintings were preserved. Here’s a selection.
Like the Alma-Tademas, a Belgian family of talented painters who specialised in scenes set in Pompeii.
Narrative painting was popular and becoming increasingly sophisticated two millennia ago.
Ask which were the first landscape paintings in Western art, and most would suggest works of Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, or Joachim Patinir. But they were actually very late compared to frescoes of the Cycladic civilisation, some three millenia before.
The Eclectic Light Company 