First Slade Professor, Principal of what became the Royal College of Art, Director of the National Gallery, and President of the Royal Academy, yet now forgotten.
Poynter
Played by warriors including Paris of Troy and Achilles, also by Saint Cecilia, angels, and a siren. And with only one string left, in Watts’ allegory of Hope.
In classical times, they were strummed like a guitar rather than plucked. Apollo, Orpheus and lyric poets from Raphael, Rubens, Waterhouse and others.
The fall of Icarus, Raphael’s cartoon of the Miraculous Draft of Fishes, Hodler, Larsson, John Constable and others painting anglers.
Tragedy for the great bard, as his attempt to rescue Eurydice from the Underworld fails, and he is later torn limb from limb by furious Maenads.
After being entertained by Demodocus’ tale of Venus and Mars, Odysseus is delivered in the dead of night, still asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca.
Odysseus is lashed to the mast as his ship passes the Sirens without being lured away. He’s the only survivor after shipwreck, then is trapped with Calypso for seven years.
Varnish has been applied to protect the paint layer. But layers of old varnish discolour and trap dirt and contaminants, letting a painting vanish into the dark.
Paintings that don’t look like they were intended to be, from Leonardo’s Last Supper, to Manet’s cut-up Execution of Emperor Maximilian.
A little of the history of Egypt, from Books of the Dead in 1300 BCE, up to Napoleon’s campaign there between 1798-1801.
