Curtains in Raphael’s remarkable trompe l’oeil, concealing a nude, opened by the peeping tom, revealing a lost lover, and as separator between players and spectators.
Wood
Preparing the soil to deliver its best yields using a mould-board or turning plough, pulled by a team of oxen, helps the soil drain and breaks it up into a fine tilth ready for sowing.
The horse in chivalry, carrying Mazeppa or Haidamak insurgent, in the circus, racing riderless through Rome, and in Vernet’s studio.
Yellow for harvest at the end of the dry summer. Also mixed with blues and greens, although sometimes not proving lightfast.
Rolling countryside in the Downs of England, the Alban Hills near Rome, Normandy, Pontoise, the Jorat in Switzerland, and the rural Midwest.
Paintings of gardeners by Bazille, Sisley, Caillebotte, Pissarro, Grant Wood and others.
From the snowy landscape of Brueghel’s Hunters to Monet’s Magpie, with Pissarro, Signac, Caillebotte and others.
Pontoise by Pissarro, Paul Nash’s Berkshire Downs, Rosa Bonheur’s teams of oxen ploughing, and Grant Wood’s Iowa prairie.
From herons flying above the fields and rivers, to the bustling streets of Paris and New York. Then taking to the air among the clouds of war.
From changes in ploughs to the enclosure and farming of what had been open land, landscape paintings can tell us a lot about the history of the land.
The Eclectic Light Company 