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The Story in Paintings: who killed John the Baptist? 1 Herodias
It is most unusual, perhaps unique, for a painting to have changed the account of a significant event in history, and to have generated a popular archetype which has since pervaded many other stories...
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The Story in Paintings: who killed John the Baptist? 2 Doubt
The great majority of paintings showing the story of Herod’s party, Salome’s dance, and the execution of Saint John the Baptist prior to the nineteenth century drew on the traditional account given in...
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Analysing and telling changing narrative in Storyspace 5
In my last article, I reported experiencing some limitations when using Web Links. Following further assistance from Mark Anderson, I can explain more clearly how they should work, even though in that...
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The Story in Paintings: who killed John the Baptist? 3 Salome
By the middle of the nineteenth century, some ambiguity had been developing in the traditional biblical story of Herod’s party, Salome’s dance, and the execution of Saint John the Baptist. Although the...
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Tyger’s eye: William Blake’s role models and peers – Barry, Flaxman,...
William Blake’s unique vision and genius still required inspiration, role models, and peers. This article gives a brief overview of some of the contemporary artists who are believed to have been of...
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 8 Into the sky
The 1876 Salon was the watershed in Gustave Moreau’s art. In four paintings, of which two featured Salome, he had re-established himself as one of the leading artists of the day. His next major focus...
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Changing Times: Lovis Corinth, 1901-1904
With the success of his painting of Salome, and his move to Berlin, Lovis Corinth was reaching the peak of his career. He relished his new-found reputation as ‘the painter of flesh’, and was now at the...
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 9 The final Salon
Much of Moreau’s time from 1879 to 1884 was occupied painting more than sixty watercolours illustrating the fables of La Fontaine for a very rich patron. However, he still found time to exhibit at the...
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The Salome Story: analysing and telling changing narrative on your Mac
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been putting together a hypertext document using Eastgate’s superb authoring environment, Storyspace. I think that it is pretty well ready now, and invite you to...
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Brief Candles: Henri Regnault, the history painter who became history
… Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. (William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.) The most...
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Changing Times: Lovis Corinth, 1905-1909
Since Corinth had joined the Berlin Secession in 1901, and two years later married Charlotte Berend, his career had not looked back. Although early family and social life had reduced the number of...
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 10 Grief and recovery
For the previous twenty-five years, there had been two women in Moreau’s life: his mother, who in her old age had grown so deaf that the artist wrote her notes explaining each of his paintings, and his...
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Changing Times: Lovis Corinth, 1909-1911
Just before the outbreak of the First World War, Lovis Corinth was at the peak of his career, and with his wife Charlotte and their two young children, was enjoying everything that Berlin had to offer....
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 11 Mythical animals and cities
During the late 1880s, Gustave Moreau had largely recovered from the death of his mother. Although he still did not submit his work for major public exhibitions, in 1886 the Goupil Gallery mounted a...
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The Story in Paintings: How sculpture changed Ganymede’s story
Conventional wisdom is that narrative in the traditional visual arts, including painting and sculpture, is limited, perhaps even marginal when compared to that in verbal (spoken or written) arts. I was...
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The Salome Story: first full release version for Storyspace and Tinderbox
I am delighted to offer my first proper release version of The Salome Story hypertext, which examines the different narratives involving Herod, Herodias, Salome, and John the Baptist, and looks at how...
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Changing Times: Lovis Corinth, self-portraits and 1912
In December 1911, when he was 53 and at the peak of his career, Lovis Corinth suffered a major stroke. When he regained consciousness, he did not even recognise his wife Charlotte, and his left arm and...
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Changing Times: Lovis Corinth, 1913-1914
By the beginning of 1913, Lovis Corinth had essentially overcome any consequences of his stroke at the end of 1911. His painting style had moved on – not because of any residual physical limitations –...
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 12 For the museum
By the summer of 1890, both the women in Gustave Moreau’s life – first his mother, then his partner/mistress/muse – had died. But contrary to some claims, he did not become a recluse, nor did he stop...
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Hesiod’s Brush, the paintings of Gustave Moreau: 13 Jupiter and Semele
Gustave Moreau started work on his last major painting by 1889, and seems to have concentrated on it most in 1894-95. The story at the heart of it is one of the strangest in classical myth, and has not...
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