Medium Well Done: 5 Watercolour and gouache

With a binder of gum arabic, watercolours came into use in the Renaissance, and have steadily increased in popularity.

Louisa Beresford: a truly vanished Pre-Raphaelite

Visit Ford in Northumberland and you’ll see her murals in the old village school. Taught to paint by Rossetti, she is claimed as a Pre-Raphaelite. Was she?

Wet in wet: a brief history of watercolour – 4, After Impressionism

Including superb paintings by Zorn, Marie Spartali Stillman, Boldini, van Gogh, Cézanne, Sargent, Demuth, and Signac.

Wet in wet: a brief history of watercolour – 3, 1850-1890

From Richard Parkes Bonington, through AW Hunt, John Brett, Edward Poynter, Delacroix, Rosa Bonheur, Daumier, Gustave Moreau, and Winslow Homer.

Wet in wet: a brief history of watercolour – 2, 1800-1850

This takes us from Samuel Palmer and Peter De Wint, through Girtin and Cotman, to JMW Turner and William Blake.

Wet in wet: a brief history of watercolour – 1, origins to 1800

The first in a series of 4, starts with Dürer’s brilliant paintings, looks at Raphael, Hans Bol, and the beginnings of the ‘English School’.

Alexander Cozens: experimental painter – his tercentenary

Although few of his finished paintings survive, he was a major influence on John Constable and others, and some of his techniques were not exploited until the 20th century.

The Forgotten Pre-Raphaelite: Marie Spartali Stillman, 2 – 1884 to 1892

Her time in Florence brought maturity to her work. She then painted a series of major paintings, although you’d be pushed to find any in European collections.

Between Turner and the 20th century: Alfred William Hunt

He painted some of the most wonderful landscapes of the nineteenth century, but today is almost forgotten.

Brief Candles: Thomas Girtin part 2

In the last couple of years of his brief life, his watercolours changed, and pushed the boundaries, for others to follow.