Attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1655, oil on panel, 2' 5
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams (1962) According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near the edge of … Continue reading
Hieronymus Bosch, Arrest of Christ and Christ Carrying the Cross from the Exterior of the Triptych of The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1505-1506, oil on panel, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Artwork in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
French for the word gray, grisaille is the technique of painting in a muted monochrome palette. As would be expected, this technique often was used for the underpainting of a work of art; however, in the 15th century artists painted many exteriors of … Continue reading
Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, 1500, oil on panel, 26.4” x 19.3”, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Albrecht Dürer Northern Renaissance Artist Albrecht Dürer, German painter, printmaker and theorist, was born on May 21, 1471 in Nuremberg, where he lived for most of his life. His father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder, was a goldsmith; most likely, the … Continue reading
Detail, Interior, Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1480-1515, oil on panel, center 7’ 2½” x 6’ 4½”, wings, each 7’ 2½” x 3’ 2”, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Late one night, a young woman named Amelia, a college student at Oklahoma Christian University, noticed that Hieronymus Bosch painted music on the rear end of a figure in the scene of Hell in his Garden of Earthly Delights, and so … Continue reading
Albrecht Dürer, The Adoration of the Shepherds, from The Life of the Virgin, circa 1503, woodcut, 11 3/4 x 8 5/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Albrecht Dürer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Albrect Dürer created this lovely woodcut of the shepherds adoring the baby Jesus on the night he was born as part of a series that illustrates the Life of the Virgin. The print demonstrates Dürer’s German sensibilities with the expressive … Continue reading
Jacques Daret, The Visitation, 1434-35, oil on oak panel, 22.44” x 20.47”, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Mitre (noun) A mitre is a pointed hat worn by bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church. In Jacques Daret’s painting of the Visitation, the moment when Mary, pregnant with Jesus meets her relative Elizabeth, who is pregnant … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
This large and impressive painting by Gerard David stops nearly all visitors to the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, Belgium in their tracks. Viewers look upon the two large panels with a mixture of abhorrence and fascination while they wonder what is … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
It looks like this refined watercolor of a clump of turf was done on the spot – the artist, German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer, sitting outside in a meadow; however, Dürer painted it in his studio probably after arranging the … Continue reading
Joachim Patinir, St. Jerome in the Desert, c. 1515, oil on panel, 30.7” x 53.9”, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Joachim Patinir created this image just as landscape painting was coming into its own as a separate and distinct subject in art for the first time since the ancient Roman era. This painting by Patinir and others like it really … Continue reading
Exterior, Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1480-1515, oil on panel, center 7’2½” x 6’4½”, wings, each7’2½” x 3’2”, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Like many titles given to works of art, The Garden of Earthly Delights does not describe the subject of this painting at all. Artists normally did not give titles to their creations. Other people suggested titles, sometimes centuries later, and … Continue reading