Inspired by a campaign to raise the age of consent, Watts harked back to the Athenian version of the Hunger Games.
Ben Pollitt
Being a female artist in Victorian England wasn’t easy. Osborn made it work, but does the painting’s protagonist?
Emily Mary Osborn, Nameless and Friendless
Both Millais and Hunt offered to help Rossetti correct the perspective in his Annunciation scene–why did he refuse?
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini
The visual vocabulary of classical antiquity was well-suited to the the British Empire’s temple of knowledge.
Robert Smirke, The British Museum
In a century obsessed with conquering nature, Friedrich paints a humble reminder of man’s limitations.
Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea
People paid to see this apocalyptic painting performed with light and sound—as much theatre as work of art.
John Martin, The Great Day of His ...
Somewhere over the rainbow? Constable’s may have been an afterthought, but is bright with meaning.
John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
What do you get if you combine a naval hero, global religious imagery, and an aquatic agent of Satan?
William Blake, The spiritual form of Nelson ...
Royal ambivalence? Rude’s Arc de Triomphe sculpture had a revolutionary message, but the endorsement of the king.
François Rude, La Marseillaise
Géricault makes the inner suffering of his sitters visible, but what inspired this unusual subject matter?
Théodore Géricault, Portraits of the Insane
Sumptuously bedecked in luxurious textiles, Madame Rivière has some tricks up her sleeve.
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