Candles in Candlemas, as votives, at pardons and funerals, and snuffed out as part of excommunication. Used in sorcery, allegory, and Vanitas.
symbol
Saying it with flowers from the Pre-Raphaelites, scattering opium poppies, drowning with forget-me-nots, and choosing between camellias and violets.
Saying it with flowers from Botticelli’s Primavera with over 130 species of flower to Hans Memling’s innovative floral still life.
Rediscovering our iconology and visual tradition, starting with a Ship of Fools, Death and the Maiden, Truth coming out of her well, and the wings on angels.
Well known from language, the scarlet woman should be easy to read in paintings. But all that is scarlet isn’t who you’d expect.
A relatively common motif, it started with the peculiar association of death and the erotic, then changed in the late 19th century.
What was thought to be an unusual painting by Hieronymus Bosch turns out to be part of a triptych. But what is the Ship of Fools about?
Examples from William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, Delacroix, and an enigmatic painting of Wales.
The use of symbols in paintings from the Renaissance to the start of the nineteenth century, with van Eyck, Rubens, Girodet, and others.
Why are there two tortoises in the foreground of Moreau’s ‘Orpheus’? After a journey through Zen Buddhism, fables, and political allegory, the answer may be more obvious.
The Eclectic Light Company 