Dec 20, 2022
When Gainsborough painted this classic artwork it was an experiment. He loved to paint landscapes but portraits were the order of the day. So, this painting was his way of combining the two genres. Gainsborough considered it a failed attempt. He left the painting unfinished and handed it off to the Andrews family. That...
Dec 13, 2022
Marriage a la Mode II: The Tete a Tete works like a meme rather than just a painting. That's because William Hogarth was more than a mere master painter. He was a writer and satirist with an unabashed bawdiness and humor that made Hogarth an icon. In fact, his work punctuated a significant part of the social milieu to...
Dec 6, 2022
Lady Jane Grey was the Queen of England for nine days in 1553. She was the great granddaughter of King Henry VII and her first cousin, Edward VI nominated her for accession to the throne. He was an ardent Protestant and knew that Lady Jane would carry that through her reign. This subverted the claim of his half...
Nov 29, 2022
Rubens loved to draw his wife, Isabella Brant. The old Flemish master married her in the early 1600s when he was a young upstart. Peter Paul Rubens was popular and famous for his baroque paintings in his lifetime. The work of Rubens now lives in the collective unconscious as an icon of sensual and lush depictions of...
Nov 22, 2022
The Swiss painter Angelica Kauffman created her self portrait Colors as part of a series for the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Kauffman was one of two women who founded the Academy. Her four part series on crucial elements of painting still graces that art institution today.
Colors sets the best example of her...