A period in which the winters were exceptionally cold, landscapes showing folk skating on frozen canals and rivers, promenading, and playing kolf, and ancestor of modern golf.
van der Neer
Unusual paintings to add novelty to a collection, with maritimes, river views, cloudscapes, Amsterdam burning, and a couple of distinctive ‘negatives’.
A woman spinning in front of her bed, a view of a street, a waterfront, marketplace, boats on the river, canals, windmills, a sandy beach, clouds, and frozen rivers – everyday life in the Golden Age.
Scylla accosted by the grotesque sea-god Glaucus. When she runs away from him, he seeks the help of Circe, only for her to turn Scylla into a pack of hounds, then into a hazard to navigation.
Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aelbert Cuyp, van Ruisdael, Caspar Wolf, Jongkind, Whistler and others of ice on rivers, canals, lakes and the sea. Brrrr.
From the Dutch Golden Age onwards, they’ve become fashionable for a while. Examples from Whistler, Turner, Kuindzhi, van Gogh, and others.
Candles in Candlemas, as votives, at pardons and funerals, and snuffed out as part of excommunication. Used in sorcery, allegory, and Vanitas.
Paintings of sorceresses, who combine dark arts and seduction. Circe with Odysseus and Scylla, Melissa, Armida, Morgan le Fay and others.
Grisaille – grey underpainting used to set the tone for a finished work – is like underwear, waiting for richly coloured clothes to go on top. Not in these paintings, though.
Technically very challenging, most are painted in the studio, but some are quite unreal, and others suffer from the moon illusion.
The Eclectic Light Company 