From Arcimboldo’s vegetable portrait to the height of Impressionism with Monet and Pissarro, some of the finest paintings of the season.
Renoir
With the end of the war, his output increased significantly. A close look at the Tate’s ‘Bowl of Milk’, and Bonnard’s continuing independence.
Lead antimonate yellow was the original Naple Yellow, but had first been used long before in glassware. Paintings by Claude Lorrain, Böcklin, Renoir, and others.
Two pigments: straight Chromium Oxide, which is rather dull, and the more intense Viridian. Paintings by Böcklin, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Seurat, van Gogh, and Cézanne.
How a Polish pianist came to enable so much of the painting, music, and ballet of the first half of the 20th century – with her portraits by Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, and others.
A beautiful, intense green used by the van Eycks, Tintoretto, Domenichino, and Renoir, it was never popular in oil paints, and quietly died out.
One of the earliest synthetic pigments, it was widely used throughout Europe, India, and Asia. But like lead white, it is seriously toxic.
Spring is here, in the UK the season of umbrellas. Here are paintings by Caillebotte, Krohg, Degas, Renoir, and others showing umbrellas used to shelter from the rain.
The most famous of all, with its origins in Afghanistan, the most precious and beautiful pigment. But it has caught out some of the best forgers too.
What made images of women sewing so popular in the late 19th century? Here are some of the best from about 1885 to the Nabis in the 20th century.
The Eclectic Light Company 