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Altogether Now: 2 Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, c 1500
Every painting is unique, but this one is among the most unique works of art ever produced in Europe. It’s also one of the most densely narrative paintings, featuring dozens, maybe hundreds, of curious...
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Altogether Now: 3 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters, 1565
If there’s one thing we all remember from school it must be the water cycle, that diagram showing how rain comes from clouds, which come from the sea, which is fed by the rivers. Or, as John Evans and...
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Don Quixote 46: Attacked by night
In the previous episode, Sancho Panza made up for his lunchtime starvation by eating voraciously at dinner. It was then night, when as governor of the ‘Island’ of Barataria he had to do his rounds of...
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Altogether Now: 4 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559
Six years before Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted his innovative Harvesters (1565), he compiled a visual encyclopaedia of Netherlandish Proverbs which is another brilliant example of this form of...
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Paintings of Nils Jakob Blommér: 1 Norse Myths
In the middle of the nineteenth century, painting in Sweden was something of a backwater. It was then that several artists tried to create a national Swedish art, forming an Artists’ Guild in 1846....
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Don Quixote 47: Refusing riches
In the previous episode, after a light breakfast, Sancho Panza had been asked to give judgement on a case more like a logic puzzle before he could adjourn for a more liberal lunch. A messenger then...
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Altogether Now: 5 Jacopo Tintoretto, The Crucifixion, c 1558
The Crucifixion is one of the most popular themes for Christian religious painting, and one of the most conventional. When Jacopo Tintoretto was commissioned to paint it for the Scuola del Santissimo...
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Don Quixote 48: Victory but no blood spilt
In the previous episode, the Duke and Duchess arranged a proxy for the suitor to the old duenna’s daughter, to fight on his behalf with Don Quixote. As he rode away from his governorship, Sancho Panza...
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Altogether Now: 6 William Powell Frith, Derby Day, 1856-8
By the seventeenth century, paintings with a great many small narratives had fallen out of favour. Although there may be some exceptions, my next examples are taken from the nineteenth century, when...
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Don Quixote 49: Trampled by bulls
In the previous episode, the Duke schooled the proxy who was to fight Don Quixote in a duel, to ensure that he would defeat the knight without injuring him. On the agreed day, a platform was built for...
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Altogether Now: 7 William Powell Frith, The Railway Station, 1862
In the previous article in this series, I looked at the first human panoramas painted by William Powell Frith (1819–1909), but stopped short of the painting which many think is his greatest. William...
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Don Quixote 50: With outlaws into Barcelona
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rode away from the Duke’s palace, and first came across farmers carrying wood carvings for their village altarpiece. Next they met two young women...
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Altogether Now: 8 Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1863
At the same time that William Frith was painting his social panoramas, one of the Pre-Raphaelites was painting his own. Although not one of the Brotherhood itself, Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893) was...
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Don Quixote 51: The enchanted bust
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rode on towards Barcelona. They came to blows when the knight decided he’d help his squire reach his goal of three thousand lashes in order to...
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Altogether Now: 9 Hieronymus Bosch, The Haywain Triptych, 1510-16
The last of the super-narrative paintings in this series is perhaps the most ambitious of them all, and is thought to be the last painting by Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516) which survives today, and...
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Painting in Italy around 1500 2: Change
In the first article of this pair looking at painting in Italy around 1500, to provide context for the commemoration of the life and work of Piero di Cosimo, I looked at more established artists,...
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Don Quixote 52: Galleys and defeat
In the previous episode, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been welcomed into the home of Don Antonio in Barcelona. After the knight and his squire had entertained their host’s friends at lunch, Don...
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In memoriam Piero di Cosimo, who died 500 years ago 2
In the first article in this series of three to commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of Piero di Cosimo (1462–1522), I had reached the first of his major mythological paintings in...
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Altogether Now: 0 Narrative structure and contents
Visual narrative can tell stories in ways simply unavailable in serial forms of storytelling like literature or movies. This series is about exceptional painting which tell many stories at once, in a...
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Don Quixote 53: Going home
In the previous episode, Don Antonio took Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to visit the galleys moored off Barcelona’s beach. They were welcomed on board by their commodore, and his crew delighted in...
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