Five paintings of women in trouble: Ariadne on Naxos, Mary Magdalen, an allegory of logic, the disillusioned Medea, and Cydippe with the apple of Acontius.
Rembrandt
How Dutch painters studying in Italy came to be influenced by Caravaggio, and took his style back to Utrecht, where they became known as Utrecht Caravaggists.
Composition and effects of different types of varnish, with its visual effects, and how it can make a painting unreadable when it contains accumulated dirt.
Tiny jewels fashioned from blobs of white paint, Rembrandt’s textured paint layers. Turner’s scratchings, and van Gogh’s textured Wheat Field with Cypresses, seen in fine detail.
Citizens of the Dutch Republic joined organisations such as guilds for different occupational groups, civic militia, and the administration of charity. And they loved to be painted in group portraits.
In Gérôme’s early success The Cock Fight, Rembrandt’s Night Watch, Murillo’s Adoration of the Shepherds, and many farmyard paintings.
Once widespread across Europe and many other lands, they used to grind all the grain into flour, provide power to sawmills, make paper and more.
Saskia died in 1642, so he hired a widow to look after his young son. They became lovers, broke up, and he lived with his former maid. In 1656 he was made insolvent, and spent the rest of his life in poverty, painting even more wonderfully.
A master at the age of only 19, he was discovered 4 years later, then moved to Amsterdam where he shot to fame and success. He married Saskia in 1634, and they moved into their own house in a fashionable quarter in 1639.
In 1579, 7 of the more northerly provinces in the Low Countries formed the Dutch Republic. That soon prospered from its international trade, and saw the creation of millions of paintings that changed European art.
The Eclectic Light Company 