Paintings of sorceresses, who combine dark arts and seduction. Circe with Odysseus and Scylla, Melissa, Armida, Morgan le Fay and others.
van der Neer
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.
Early landscapes constrained the sky to a backdrop. With Rubens and the Golden Age landscape painters it became the subject in its own right.
Glaucus’ attempt to get Circe to put a spell on Scylla, to make her love him, backfires. Wonderful paintings by Waterhouse, van der Neer, Henry Fuseli, and others.
Although often the preserve of specialists who concentrated on nocturnes, coasts are ideal locations for moonlit views. Caspar David Friedrich, JC Dahl, and more.
Christmas holiday was one of the few occasions that brought people out of the warm to outdoor fairs and festivals.
The Eclectic Light Company 