Piero della Francesca and the ‘art’ of Looking at Art.

Piero della Francesco will always stand out in my memory of studying the History of Art at Oxford University. In the first module of the first term of the Certificate course we listened to the wonderful Mary Acton explaining how to look at paintings. She used a number of themes to illustrate her lectures:  composition, space,…

More on Richard Wilson, Italianate landscape influence and Mountainous Wales

Cader Idris is a very popular mountain, and an enjoyable Painting of the Month, judging by your feedback on Richard Wilson’s eighteenth century painting. It inspired me to do more reading and research on Wilson. As well as meeting Francesco Zuccarelli while in Venice, and being persuaded away from portraiture, it is clear that Claude…

February Painting of the Month (3) is Renoir’s Dance in the City

Renoir painted three, almost life size, paintings of dance scenes early in 1883, for the art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. These paintings mark a change from the artists Impressionist leanings towards the more classical themes of David and Ingres. The third of these, which I have featured in my February “Painting of the Month” is Dance…