Although painting and sculpture are closely allied, it’s curious to depict sculpture in painting. Examples range from early grisailles to ribald depictions of the Roman god Priapus.
Wright
Sleeping figures painted by Rubens, Poussin, Velázquez, William Blake, Richard Dadd and other masters.
Before folk history changed with the concept of human evolution, caves were sacred places inhabited by hermits, or figures from myth.
A sibyl, or an allegory of painting? Maybe the ‘maid of Corinth’ who legends says ‘invented’ painting. And are they spinners, or the story of Arachne?
The influence and inheritance of Naturalism is hard to judge even now. Given the dramatic change in painting in the 20th century, its greatest inheritance may be in photography.
Used by Joseph Wright of Derby to symbolise knowledge coming from darkness, by Henry Fuseli for the mysterious even supernatural, and Millet and van Gogh for poverty.
Was painting ‘invented’ by the maid of Corinth? What is ‘shadow play’, and how have painters extended it to religious works? A short history of shadows in painting.
A painter who specialised in depicting surprise, and works by John Collier, Lovis Corinth, and Stuart Pearson Wright complete this account.
With the Industrial Revolution, painters started to depict the furnaces and factories which grew rapidly across Europe and North America. This selection runs to 1879.
Land, sea, air, and the spectacular sight of a volcano erupting. With paintings by Marlow, Joseph Wright of Derby, and Lusieri.
