Art and Eye

  Whistler constructs a world of hedonism, perfectly appropriate for his Peacock Room, in which this painting was originally placed. Depicting a full-length figure, decadently dressed in a sumptuous kimono flowing down her elegant, elongated frame, the artist captures the movements of Aestheticism and art for art's sake popular during the mid nineteenth century, alongside an interest in 'exotic' far Eastern cultures which lead to the rise of Japonisme in artistic depictions.  Currently, the work hangs above the fireplace in the Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington. However, originally it sat in London, in a space which Whistler constructed with the help of Thomas Jeckyll, for the mansion owned by shipping magnate Frederick Leyland. However, Whistler's artistic eye dominated the project, and as costs rose and designs became more gold, sumptuous and elaborate, Leyland was increasingly irritable in correspondence, famously telling Whistler that he would b...

  With Baroque drama, expressive light and shade, alongside a contorted figure crammed into the picture frame, Guercino successfully captures the desperation of Elijah, stretching out his dark purple cloth to catch the food which falls from ravens above him. Based on the lesser known Old Testament narrative, the artist concentrates on the study of an ageing figure to convey his hunger and failing strength, against the fading blue lighting and cool stream below.  The monumental canvas gifts the viewer with a life-size representation of Elijah, whist enabling Guercino to show off the power of foreshortening - with his right knee jutting out towards a viewer, Elijah seems almost to fall out of the canvas towards us, toppling forward and bearing down on us to enhance that monumentality. This also suggests Guercino's debt to Caravaggio when constructing his Baroque canvases, and the torn red sleeve to reveal Elijah's white undershirt was yet another favoured motif of the Cavaraggis...

  Strudwick's carefully, sensitively and delicately rendered pencil portrait proves the awareness of the artist's hand beyond the medium of oil painting, and the importance of a study in his methods of working. Shading is richly worked, to capture a variety of tonal changes across the sitter's face, focusing on her downturned gaze, the gentle folds of cloth around her head and the subtle shadows of her hairline against her features. Not only does it tell a viewer more about the hand of Strudwick, but also about the artistic processes at the time; the creation of a preparatory sketch to create a future work, but which is nevertheless worth exploring on its own as a capable pencil drawing by a later Pre-Raphaelite practitioner. Strudwick is best known for his works which capture the spirit of Waterhouse, Burne-Jones, or John Roddam Spencer Stanhope - In the Golden Days by Strudwick, from 1907, invokes the stacked female figures which Burne-Jones included in his paintings, whi...

  Graceful, petite and delicately moulded, this 4th Century B.C. sculpture, sitting at 14cm in height, is now part of the British Museum's Collection. It is known as a Tanagra figurine, named after the Boeotian town in Greece where many of these types of sculptures were excavated, normally associated with grave markers. This figure may be typical in many ways, yet through the use of draperies, contrasting with the softness of the facial features, alongside the unusual pose, the small object becomes a key example of the unique skill of Hellenistic Greek sculptors, whose names may be lost to history, but whose works live on.  The Tanagra figure was acquired by Charles Merlin, arguably the most important collector of antiquities for the British Museum in the mid nineteenth century. Across a thirty year period, Merlin acquired more than 450 objects for the museum. Most notably, he was involved in the recasting of the Parthenon Marbles - the casts which Lord Elgin has repeatedly us...

  Piero del Pollaiolo's depiction of Faith draws a viewer in through detail. The seated figure remains tantalisingly close, as her foot hovers above the edge of the fictive throne she sits upon. Mapped out by complex, crisp, three-dimensional draperies, Pollaiolo celebrates his astute handling of perspective on the knees of Faith, which push into a viewer's space with surprising force. From the various artistic attributes, to the recessional niche behind the figure, Pollaiolo's panel includes diverse pictorial imagery whilst continuing to drive the central message of devotion home.  Created for the audience chamber in the Tribunale di Mercanzia in Florence, a gathering place off the Piazza della Signoria to resolve disputes between Florentine merchants, this allegorical figure was part of a series of Virtues and is now in the Uffizi. The panel, painted in tempera, with its large size and tilted perspective indicates that it was seen from above, looming over onlookers in jud...

  Charles West Cope's memorialisation of fellow painter Samuel Palmer, who died three years before this work was produced, is a small yet thoughtful etching which pulls a viewer closer. Palmer is aged and stooped, almost swaddled in layers of clothing, and leaning on the back of a chair as if to support himself, yet his gaze remains captivating and knowing. It is an interesting choice by Cope to choose the medium of etching to honour Palmer, and perhaps an oil of the same subject did at one point exist, as this was his favoured material. Training at the Royal Academy and travelling to Paris in the 1830s to expand his artistic knowledge, Cope built a career initially upon copying Old Masters which he then sold, before he created his own painted representations of historical scenes and looked to imagery centred on rural life for further inspiration. Often, he drew on the minute detail and vivid colouration found in the Pre-Raphaelite mode of working: his The Thorn of 1866, for exampl...