From Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding to Velázquez’s Las Meninas, how the skilful use of mirrors can add to a painting in mirror play.
Tintoretto
When you see the same face in a mirror that you presume that figure can also see, despite that being optically impossible. An exploration.
A brief overview of the plot of Tasso’s epic, complete with links to all the articles, and a selection of the best of paintings.
A summary of the stories and fate of the 6 leading characters: Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince Tancred, Rinaldo, Clorinda, Princess Erminia and Armida.
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.
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.
The Eclectic Light Company 