The Umbrellas

By the late 1870s and 1880s, a growing number of women were actively engaged in public life; as a result, they wore new styles of clothing appropriate for outings in the city and suburbs. Whether viewing paintings in the Musée du Louvre, singing in a Parisian church, or strolling on the island of La Grande Jatte, they appeared in daytime ensembles that, while often luxurious, tended to be...

~~After playing a role in visualizing the French Revolution, color was subject to its own upheaval in the nineteenth century, first in materials, then in making. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, chemistry had replaced alchemy. Building on the classification of the elements and using modern experimental scientific methods,...

During the early evolution of grounds for oil painting, the choice of materials was subject both to aesthetic and practical considerations, and these first and foremost determined ground colour. Only secondarily did permanence and the long-term effects of certain grounds come to be considered...