Since the decline of egg tempera and fresco in the Renaissance, oil paints have predominated. They rely on drying oils as their binder, which give them longevity and versatility.
Rubens
Two lost paintings – a mural of the Battle of Anghiari in Florence, and a possible work showing Leda, plus his later Virgin and Child with St Anne.
With a binder of gum arabic, watercolours came into use in the Renaissance, and have steadily increased in popularity.
Is it just a quirky re-telling of the myth of Arachne and her weaving contest? What do the foreground and background have in common? A superb visual riddle, perhaps.
Three religious paintings, including two skilfully-told narratives, a history, and the only nude of his to have survived.
He made friends with Rubens, who helped him improve his narrative painting, and them travelled to Italy, where he painted the first plein air oil sketches in European art.
Some works by artists of the Spanish Golden Age, including El Greco, Jusepe de Ribera, Zurbarán, and a guest appearance from Rubens and polychrome wood carving.
The most frequently-painted of Boccaccio’s hundred stories, shown here from Rubens to Frederic, Lord Leighton. But there’s much more to the story than that.
Great paintings by Rubens, David, Rembrandt, Merson, Sciuti and Tiepolo telling some of the best stories from Plutarch’s ‘Lives’.
A common convention in paintings of classical myth, the river god was a bearded old man with a put pouring forth water, often seen with a Naiad, his daughter.
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