Split a block of rock, craft your sculpture, break stones to dress the roads, be a blacksmith, sharpen your scythe, forge iron, or operate on a leg with your hammer.
Wright
After being entertained by Demodocus’ tale of Venus and Mars, Odysseus is delivered in the dead of night, still asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca.
Using shadows to tell or add detail to a visual story. Examples by Robert Campin, Gérôme. William Holman Hunt, Lovis Corinth and others.
The last two years of his reign, marred by bad decisions, led to his forced abdication in favour of King Henry IV.
A summary history from 1700 to the 20th century, with examples of major paintings, and links to each of the detailed articles in this series.
Weaving turned yarn into fabric ready to make into garments. Associations include industry, passing time, fidelity, and the myth of Arachne.
How a shunned bride consummates her marriage without her husband being aware, and tricks him out of the ring he insists he’d never give her.
Are the two arms fending others off, raised in shock, surrender, or falling to earth? From light comedy to accounts of executions and war crimes.
In a remarkable series of chiaroscuro paintings, he tells stories from the Enlightenment of science, then of the ‘invention’ of painting.
Suppressed by the Reformation, narrative painting didn’t really get going in Britain until the early 18th century, but made up for lost time.
The Eclectic Light Company 