Some of my favourite works of art

Index: Aegina | Uccello | Mantegna | della Francesca | Vermeer | Beardsley | de Saint Phalle

• Aegina (Aphaia Temple)

  I found a very comprehensive site with pictures of the sculptures now in the Glyptothek in Munich. Nice archaic smiles, despite the gory subject matter.
  
  • I think I like the sculptures from the East side a little better, esp. the Heracles figure. And have a look at the great hairdo of this young man!

• Paolo Uccello

  There are a number of websites on Uccello: a brief biography, a whole homepage with pictures and bibliography!, and a biography (in Italian) with a few pictures.
  
  • one of his best pictures is actually right here in Oxford: The Hunt in the Ashmolean (tiny reproduction plus poem),
  • a great predella with lots of cute black devils is in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino,
  • a weird picture of St. George on a beautifully rounded Uccello horse, about to kill the Dragon (who hasn't got any arms, only legs, but extremely nice green wings with a huge pink spot on it, brighter on one side of the wing than the other), who's held on a very fragile red leash by the princess - there are strangely patterned patches of grass there as well, a rocky cave with a spring in it, a dark wood in the background, oddly curling clouds, the moon and a walled white city on the hills far away (in the National Gallery - again there's a tiny reproduction of it plus a poem on the Net),
  • on a larger scale, there the Battle of San Romagno: its three panels are - in different states of restoration - in the National Gallery in London, in the Uffizi in Florence (on the net: picture and short explanation, and another tiny picture and short note) and in the Louvre (the only one I haven't yet seen...)

• Andrea Mantegna

  • I like his Camera degli Sposi in Mantova best: on one wall there is a very interesting portrait of the court of the time, including Barbara of Brandenburg (on whom my friend Ebba is writing her dissertation - very very interesting!!). On another wall you can see dogs and horses and trees, instead of the court architecture - all in bright colours (restoration works finished only recently)!
  • The ceiling's painted, too: including the famous fake "skylight".

• Piero della Francesca

  I've found one website with lots of tiny pictures.
  • Some of my favourite paintings are those showing Madonna and Child, the former typically statuesque and unmoved: especially the Madonna of Segnigallia in Urbino, and the Madonna and Child with Saints in the Brera.

• Jan Vermeer van Delft

  There is a good website with very many of his pictures, and one with an article questioning Vermeer's use of the camera obscura. Other links (and locations of paintings!) are on this general comprehensive website.
  • I really like the two paintings of his in the National Gallery, both feature women and musical instruments - one in a very light room, with a very nice picture of Amor (by a contemporary Dutch artist) on the wall, the other in a shaded room with drawn-up tapestry (very characteristic) - there's so much detail in them, and great handling of light, esp. highlights, and a feel for texture, one can spend hours looking at them!
  • There is also (I believe?!) a painting of a nice red-brick house, seen from the street, which is very atmospheric...

• Aubrey Beardsley

  I've so far found one very good website on Beardsley and "decadence", with a number of good pitcures available, as well as lots of background information. There's another page with some of his less interesting pictures.
  • Quite a number of his drawings are available in the Etchings and Drawings Room in a wing of the Vic & Albert, everyone can order them up to have a look at!
  • Sometimes there's one or two on show in the Tate, too,
  but as the drawings were meant to be published as prints anyway, you may well get out a book: my favourites are the pictures (very roccocco!) to Pope's Rape of the Lock, and the earlier one for Wilde's Salome - a good general collection is published by Dover (I prefer the "Later Work").

• Niki de Saint Phalle

  • There is a Sun God by her on the Net,
  • I suppose there are some links to her fountain next to the Centre Pompidou in Paris,
  • there's a nice bright fountain, "The bathing beauties", somewhere in Sweden,
  • I've now found Adam and Eve at Ulm University,
  • and there definitely are three Nanas in Hannover - so far I've found a picture (good one too!) of one of them!
  • I also found an Italian sit with some information about her Tarot Garden.
  • Plus, I've got info on a film about her work.

  ---

  You can also have a look at the original, brightly coloured version of the background (to be established...) for this page (c) Sophia Fowler.

  ---

  * return to the top of this page | my homepage | my books page | my films page.
  Hosted by www.Geocities.ws