Worn by the figure of death to obscure its face, as a cowl on a monk’s robes, in religious and academic uniforms, as a chaperon on Dante, and for the traveller when migrating.
Raphael
With ancient origins, and relatively unusual in wooden panels, round canvases became popular in the Renaissance. Examples by Raphael, Poussin, Tiepolo, Girodet, Richard Dadd and others.
Huge paintings using opaque watercolour paint, layered combinations of transparent and opaque, scratching out, wax resist and even grains of salt.
The Renaissance provided the tools of realist painting, but remained largely bound to religious and mythical motifs. Seventy years later, many new genres had appeared.
Painting captions give information you’d never get from looking at an image, and that in turn tells you even more. This series looks beyond mere images at the media behind them.
Pythagoras links the myths in Ovid’s book in the constant changes seen in nature, and advocates vegetarianism. Then King Numa’s wife dictates to him the laws of Rome.
Paintings mimicking an architectural frieze, with figures flattened into a plane parallel to the picture plane. Used deliberately by Ferdinand Hodler and others.
Ultramarine blue for Mary’s cloak, red for the Passion, cardinals and the scarlet woman. Other colour codes, including their importance in multiplex narrative.
Mary Magdalene, Saint Paul, Saint Cecilia, Joan of Arc in paintings by Elisabetta Sirani, Artemisia Gentileschi, Raphael, Annie Swynnerton and others.
The origin of the conical hat worn by Jews. and that worn by dunces. Cavaliers and Roundheads, crowns and mitres, the cardinal’s red biretta, and Dante’s chaperon.
The Eclectic Light Company 