Tancred loses Erminia’s trail in a wood, and is tricked into stepping into a dungeon. Battle rages outside Jerusalem, and Godfrey is forced to try to take the city, putting Clorinda at risk.
Tintoretto
After the Bible and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the most popular literary source for paintings before 1900, yet hardly anyone knows this epic today. The introduction to a new series.
Fine paintings from Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Gerard David, Beccafumi, Lavinia Fontana, Tintoretto, El Greco and Murillo.
Hephaistos or Vulcan in classical myth, cheated on by Aphrodite/Venus, and as creator of Pandora. In Bosch’s Last Judgement, and elsewhere.
In a myth invented by Piero, a radical annunciation, Pre-Raphaelite religious paintings, William Blake and others who allude to Joseph, the most famous of all.
Applying thinner layers of paint, or glazes, developed optical effects that were widely used into the late 19th century, but have now fallen from favour.
How Lycurgus got the Spartans to keep his laws, the 300 at Thermopylae, a Spartan poet supporting warriors in the 2nd Messenian War, and the role of Sparta in the start of the war against Troy.
Gravediggers, Christ as a gardener, itinerant foresters, road workers, snow-clearers, a vegetable gardener plagued by moles, and sandcastles on the beach.
Guards throwing dice in the Crucifixion, gambling in Bosch’s vision of Hell, in a dingy tavern, losing an entire estate, and being played by young street urchins.
A natural mineral, it was unpopular in oil paint because of its coarse granules, but worked well in water-based media. It faded from use after a brief revival in the 19th century.
The Eclectic Light Company 