Painting

London, Tate Modern There must have been something in the air. During 1905 Debussy wrote La Mer, Elgar published Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Picasso was producing some of his most memorable ‘rose period’ work and in Switzerland, Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity, which completely revolutionised our understanding of the universe. During that summer two … Read more

New York, Museum of Modern Art Today Paul Cézanne is admired as one of the greatest artists of the late 19th century; which makes it all the more surprising to recall that in his own time, few people liked Cézanne’s work. In fact, when Cézanne offered his hometown, Aix-en-Provence, a large collection of his paintings … Read more

London, Courtauld Institute Gallery The Lac d’Annecy is situated in the Haute Savoie, in the approaches to the French Alps. Cézanne has chosen a view of the Château de Duingt from across the lake. The composition is framed and confined by a tree which is positioned close to the left edge of the canvas and … Read more

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier is recognised as the founder of modern chemistry. He was born in Paris in 1743, the son of wealthy parents, both of whom were lawyers, but after a liberal education which included the study of law, it was clear that his interests lay in the field … Read more

London, National Gallery According to the artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari, Piero was an eccentric recluse who restricted his diet to hard-boiled eggs which he prepared in batches of fifty. It makes a good story but although Vasari was not the most reliable of biographers it seems likely that his account, at least in regard … Read more

London, The National Gallery This panel was probably commissioned as an altarpiece for a chapel dedicated to John the Baptist by the Abbey of Borgo Sansepolcro perhaps in the mid-1450s. Borgo Sansepolcro was the birthplace of the artist and it seems very probable that the town which appears in the middle distance in this picture … Read more

Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie Water lilies dominated the last 30 years of Monet’s life. ‘These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession for me’, he wrote to a friend in 1909. ‘It is beyond my strength as an old man, and yet I want to render what I feel’. It was his beloved … Read more

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Cloisters) The central panel of the Mérode Altarpiece invites us into the comfortable confines of an early 15th century northern European bourgeois domestic interior. A curiously large bench extends the whole length of the room, its back blocking off the fireplace. Lounging on the floor, her elbow propped … Read more

London, National Gallery Giovanni Arnolfini was a successful merchant-financier from Lucca, a member of the Italian community resident in the Low Countries, which then formed part of the possessions of the Duke of Burgundy. He was engaged in the lucrative importation of luxury fabrics, in large part to satisfy the Duke of Burgundy’s considerable appetite … Read more

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art In the summer of 1904 a series of canvases by Claude Monet, depicting various views of London, were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris. Unlike Monet’s view of the Palace of Westminster shrouded in mist painted some 30 years earlier (the then infamous Impression; Sunrise), this new London series … Read more