The Forgotten Art UK

Be it for the purposes of drama, satire, compassion or sensitivity to social realism, beggars, the blind and the crippled have been a traditional subject in European painting since the Renaissance. The Beggars ( The Cripples ), an oil on panel by Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1568, is the artwork that starts this trend. I found an antique painting on a wooden panel at the Portobello Road market on Friday, July 3, 2020. From a distance I thought it was an old lithograph glued to a panel, but taking a 10x loupe I could not see any dot structure, but fine and precise brushstrokes of  egg tempera and watercolour  on paper  laid down  on wood panel.  It is difficult to accurately determine the technique and pigments used without cross-sectioning. When observed with the aid of a magnifying glass, some areas (the trees, for example) appear to be painted in watercolour, and others, such as the faces, in egg tempera. The combined use of both techniq...

  On our first walk from Hammersmith Bridge we reach the picturesque Chiswick Square. Today we will continue our journey towards Kew, following a route once frequented by artists. We now continue the road, Burlington Ln, towards Chiswick House. The name of the street refers to the former 3rd Earl of Burlington, Richard Boyle, 'the Apollo of the Arts' in the words of Horace Walpole, for being a great patron of artists. Boyle inherited two properties in London, Burlington House in Picadilly, now the headquarters of the Royal Academy, and Chiswick House, which he turned into one of the architectural gems that can be found nowadays in London. Burlington played a key role in the revival of the Neo-Palladian architecture in Britain. Chiswick House from the pond. Chiswick's clean air and proximity to London (only 6 miles from Hyde Park Corner) had made it a desirable retreat. In the past London was a noisy, dirty and smelly city, where plagues and epidemics were easily spread. In ...