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Reading Visual Art: 194 Altars, later
Given the great many paintings commissioned as altarpieces, it’s perhaps surprising that relatively few others depicted Christian altars. When you might expect them to, for example in Nicolas Poussin’s...
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Reading Visual Art: 195 Hats with meaning
It wasn’t that long ago that it was most unusual to go out without wearing a hat. Although they’ve made something of a comeback in recent decades, in much of the world they’re still far from popular...
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Reading Visual Art: 196 Hats of fashion
The world still looks to Paris for the height of fashion in clothing, a phenomenon already well-established by the late nineteenth century. This of course included hats, and in this second article on...
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Reading Visual Art: 197 Pain
Facial expressions are a rich source of information about our emotions, state of mind, and when we are in pain. While heroes always grin and bear it, and sometimes the most unlikely person appears...
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Changing Paintings: 62 Aeneas flees Troy
Ovid assures us that the Fates didn’t completely crush the hopes of Troy in its destruction: from within the burning ruins, the hero Aeneas is fleeing, his aged father on his shoulders, and with his...
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Reading Visual Art: 198 Religious ecstasy
Now debased by hyperbole and its association with drugs, ecstasy was intended to denote a trance-like state normally attained in two contrasting contexts: religion, and physical pleasure. This week I...
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Reading Visual Art: 199 Physical ecstasy
Aside from the ecstasy brought by intense religious experiences, considered in the first of these two articles, this trance-like state can most commonly result from physical pleasure. Until recently,...
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Changing Paintings: 63 The tragedy of Galatea
As Ovid nears the end of Book 13 of his Metamorphoses, Aeneas and his companions are in transit across the Mediterranean, heading towards Italy and destiny. He rushes them through a rapid succession of...
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Reading Visual Art: 200 Dancing, myth and folk
There are few greater challenges to the figurative artist than painting figures in movement when they’re dancing. This week’s two articles about reading visual art consider the significance of rising...
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Reading Visual Art: 201 Dancing, ballet and erotic
In this second article about reading dancing in paintings, I move on to its most formalised expression, in ballet, which came to dominate the work of several artists in the late nineteenth century,...
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