Painting
6 postsScenes from the Massacres at Chios
Painting (oil on canvas) · Eugène Delacroix
Delacroix's decision in 1824 was to paint the aftermath, not the action. The Ottoman massacre of the Greek population of Chios had occurred two years earlier, in April 1822, during the Greek War of In
The Raft of the Medusa
Painting (oil on canvas) · Théodore Géricault
On the second of July 1816 the French frigate Méduse ran aground on the Bank of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania. The frigate had been sailing under a politically appointed captain, Hugues Duroy de
Saturn Devouring His Son
Mural transferred to canvas · Francisco Goya
Goya painted Saturn on the wall of his own kitchen at sixty-eight, deaf for three decades, after surviving three regimes that wanted him dead. The reading of the Black Paintings as private therapy is
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Triptych (oil on oak panels) · Hieronymus Bosch
Five centuries of writing have not produced a stable reading of this triptych, and the failure is significant. Most paintings yield to interpretation by the second generation of critics. Bosch's centr
The Isle of the Dead
Painting (oil on canvas) · Arnold Böcklin
Böcklin painted five versions of this image between 1880 and 1886. The repetition is the first thing to notice. He did not work on the picture, sell it, and move on; he made it again, then again, then
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Painting (oil on canvas) · Caspar David Friedrich
Friedrich's painting works by what he denies the viewer. The figure's face is turned away. The valley is consumed in fog. The mountain ridge in the middle distance breaks the surface only enough to co
