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William Merritt Chase paints history, for a brief moment
You may know William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) as one of the American Impressionists, and as one of the most influential teachers of his time, but did you know that he made two history paintings? After...
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The Story in Paintings: The spirits of nations
Recent debate about prohibition of ‘burkinis’ and other dress in France has elicited discussion of Marianne, the legendary figure shown in Delacroix’s famous painting Liberty Leading the People (1830)....
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Porting from WordPress to Storyspace, 3: alt stories and references
In the last article – before macOS Sierra was upon us – I had been building the spine of a hypertext document ported from a series of WordPress articles. Since then, I have completed building that...
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The Story in Paintings: Eastman Johnson sugaring off
We have seen examples before of painted narratives which, at the time, were easily read, but which have since become obscure and sometimes even lost. This one is unusually complex, because of the...
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The Story in Paintings: Philip Hermogenes Calderon 1, the Bible and morals
As with the French Impressionists, there were many artists who were associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement who are little-known today. Every so often I stumble across one – Marie Spartali Stillman...
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The Story in Paintings: Philip Hermogenes Calderon 2, Shakespeare and the...
Following the success of his Broken Vows and subsequent work, particularly his mediaeval Home After Victory, Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833–1898) was elected a full member of the Royal Academy in...
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The Story in Paintings: Mariana – Shakespeare or Tennyson?
Artists of all periods since have painted characters and scenes from the plays of William Shakespeare. Some – such as Hamlet, King Lear, the witches from Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet – have been...
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Frederic, Lord Leighton: Classic and Aesthetic
Of his contemporaries, there were few artists who contrasted greater with Rossetti than Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). Trained in Europe for more than twelve years, he studied and worked in...
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Sir Edward Poynter, a British Gérôme? 1, to 1879
It is hard to believe now that, in his day, Sir Edward Poynter (1836–1919) was one of the most eminent British artists. But like so many in the later years of the nineteenth and early twentieth...
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Sir Edward Poynter, a British Gérôme? 2, 1880 onwards
By 1880, Sir Edward Poynter (1836–1919) was well-established as one of the leading artists of the day. Although he had painted some spectacular panoramas and some scenes from popular classical...
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Porting from WordPress to Storyspace, 4: sidethreads and projections
In the last article, I showed how I incorporated an alternative narrative thread in my Storyspace hypertext account of the history of oil painting, and how to incorporate references using stretchtext....
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John Everett Millais: only briefly Pre-Raphaelite
John Everett Millais (1829–1896) was a child prodigy and co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). He started his studies at the Royal Academy Schools in London when he was only eleven years...
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The Story in Paintings: Aesculapius or Asclepius
In the second of my recent articles on Sir Edward Poynter, I included a painting of his titled A Visit to Aesculapius (1880), noting that it showed an unusual motif. Just how unusual? If you look at...
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Storyspace and hypertext: index to articles
This is a revised index to articles and tutorials posted here about Storyspace 3 and hypertext, and is updated when further articles are posted. Storyspace Reader Download from Eastgate Systems or here...
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Lawrence Alma-Tadema: classics go Aesthetic, 1
The four artists whose reputations bore the brunt of the early twentieth-century rush through Post-Impressionism to Modernism were John Singer Sargent, Frederick, Lord Leighton, Sir Edward Poynter, and...
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Lawrence Alma-Tadema: classics go Aesthetic, 2
In the previous article, I looked at a selection of paintings by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) up to 1873, by which time he had settled in England and established himself as a successful...
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The Story in Paintings: Wiertz’s weird tales
It’s hard to conceive what life – and death – must have been like in the early nineteenth century. With more people crowding into cities, epidemics of cholera and other diseases were commonplace, and...
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Porting from WordPress to Storyspace, 5: galleries and timelines
In my last article, I elaborated on my main thread using a sidethread, to enrich my hypertext narrative. So far I have been paying a lot of attention to those threads, and have neglected two other...
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Porting from WordPress to Storyspace, 6: glossary and index
I was feeling quite pleased after my last article in this series sorted out two of the remaining issues with my hypertext account of the history of oil painting. Until yesterday, when I realised that I...
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Into the Light: Frederick Sandys, Rossetti’s shadow?
When examining Pre-Raphaelite landscape painting, I briefly mentioned the work of Frederick Sandys (1829–1904). His name is often omitted from lists of Pre-Raphaelites, but I hope here to convince you...
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