Did Vermeer use a camera obscura? What went wrong with Impressionist oil sketches? When did Klimt paint from photographs? Does any of this really detract from the art in a painting?
Vermeer
Paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, Velázquez, Gerard ter Borch, and Vermeer, including an unusual Madonna in which the Virgin Mary is writing the Magnificat.
Ever noticed how stern everyone looks in paintings? Here are some exceptions from Frans Hals, Murillo, Vermeer and others.
Primary task to milk cows by hand, also make possible the eradication of smallpox. Paintings by Rubens, Potter, Vermeer, Gainsborough and others.
If composers and performers can evoke visual images in music, why can’t painters return the complement? Lavinia Fontana, Vermeer, Menzel, Corot and others try.
Paintings by Vermeer, Delaroche, Whistler, Gérôme, Waterhouse and others showing wonderful carpets and floors.
Raphael’s legacy, including assimilation of styles, figures so lifelike they’re ‘almost breathing’, and a large workshop.
From Botticelli’s map of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ to Vermeer’s fine-detailed depictions of decorative wall hangings.
Controversial and an ardent anti-unionist, Frick was an eclectic collector of art. Three Vermeers, Rembrandt, Goya, Renoir, and Whistler are among its treasures.
He developed from the style and optics of Vermeer’s paintings, limiting depth of field to develop bokeh. And he painted ‘problem pictures’ too.
