#national gallery london

[tryingonametaphor]

some of van gogh’s paintings at the poets and lovers exhibition in the national gallery

+ my all time favourite work of his:

[lionofchaeronea]

The Umbrellas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, between 1881 and 1886

[saint-alia-of]

19th of October 2024. Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery, London.

[7pleiades7]

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833), (detail), by Paul Delaroche (French, 1797-1856), oil on canvas, 246 cm × 297 cm, The National Gallery, London

[skf-fineart]

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)

Portrait of a Young Man, 1480-5

Tempera and oil on wood, 37.5 × 28.3 cm

[yourcatalyticconverter]

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo | An Allegory with Venus and Time | NG6387

[bek-a-la]

[flaxmanlow]

Witches at their Incantations

Salvator Rosa, 1646

National Gallery, London

Beneath a pitch-dark sky, bizarre and terrifying magical spells are being cast. Monstrous figures, some of them naked, are arranged as if on a stage set, illuminated by scattered pools of light.

In the centre, one witch smokes the corpse of a criminal that hangs from a withered tree while her companion cuts its toenails. In front of them, naked witches use a wax effigy to cast a love spell; another, surrounded by a catalogue of magical aids, stirs a cauldron. On the extreme left, two men exhume a corpse and force it to sign a document while away to the right, a swaddled infant is held above the gaping jaws of a monster.

This macabre scene evokes a witches' sabbath, a gathering where the devil was worshipped. Salvator Rosa developed an interest in the supernatural while working in Florence in the 1640s and probably painted this remarkable picture around 1646.

[h--e--l--v--e--t--e]

[thepaintedroom]

Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940) • Madame André Wormser and her Children • The National Gallery, London

Happy Mother's Day in the U.S. !

[mostlyuk]

London, 2024

[madamemachikonew]

Went to look at Pantalone's art collection today. And found a new painting for his collection too.

The execution of Lady Jane Grey, by Delaroche.

Salome receives the head of John the Baptist, by Caravaggio.

The Execution of Maximilien, by Manet.

***NEW ACQUISITION***

Belshazzar's Feast, by Rembrandt.

Curator's note:

'In his great dramatic painting, Rembrandt tells a story from the Old Testament (Daniel 5: 1–5, 25–8). The man in the gold cloak, enormous turban and tiny crown is Belshazzar, King of Babylon. His father had robbed the Temple of Jerusalem of all its sacred vessels. Using these to serve food at a feast, as Belshazzar does here, was seen as sacrilege.

In the middle of the party, a clap of thunder came as a warning. God’s hand appeared from a cloud and wrote in Hebrew script: ‘God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.’ Within hours, Belshazzar was dead.'

[lionofchaeronea]

Cup of Water and a Rose on a Silver Plate, Francisco de Zurbarán, ca. 1630

[caedmonofwhitby]

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)

Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk, 1748

Cornard Wood is near the artist's birthplace of Sudbury, in Suffolk.

The wood was common land, not private property, and villagers had ancient rights to gather wood, graze donkeys and horses, dig marl for manure and sand for building materials, take the path to Great Henny, or just go for a stroll there.

In Gainsborough’s painting we see many of these activities: two donkeys stand on a hillock; a man, accompanied by a seated lady, rests from digging; another man cuts and ties firewood while travellers journey on foot and horseback towards Great Henny. The trees and common on the left are dappled with sunshine, whereas the two spring-fed ponds on the right are bathed in shade. The Prussian blue pigment in the sky has faded to grey.

Gainsborough said that the painting’s ’schoolboy stile‘ secretly pleased him because it showed the strength of his lifelong commitment to landscape painting.

He confessed that ’though there is very little idea of composition in the picture, the touch and closeness to nature [...] are equal to any of my later productions.‘

When Constable was painting near Woodbridge in Suffolk in 1800, he wrote: ’tis a most delightful country for a landscape painter, I fancy I see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree.'

Oil on Canvas, National Gallery London

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

The National Gallery and Saint Martin's Church in London - Giuseppe De Nittis // The Strand, London - Arthur Edmund Grimshaw // South London Forever - Florence + the Machine // Mermaids - Florence + the Machine

[yourcatalyticconverter]

Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour | The Rosy Wealth of June | NG1686