A Calm at a Mediterranean Port, 1770, by Claude-Joseph Vernet

In brilliant detail, Claude-Joseph Vernet captured the gorgeous weather and leisurely activities of a day by the sea. Fishermen clean the day's catch on a stone pier while several people chat nearby, one of them pointing toward the large ship in the bay. Meanwhile, a man sits and smokes his pipe, the tobacco glowing a bright red. A cumulus cloud, perhaps the remnant of a distant storm, towers to the left of the setting sun. Warm tones of yellow, orange, and red predominate, suggesting a hazy sunset after a bright day.

In A Calm, Vernet portrayed a completely peaceful scene in striking contrast to its pendant, A Storm on a Mediterranean Coast. Taken together, the two works show, on the one hand, nature's benevolence, and on the other, nature's fury.

A Storm on a Mediterranean Coast, 1767, by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Getty Museum

Claude-Joseph Vernet depicted a storm's aftermath: dark clouds above an angry sea, a shipwrecked boat and its anxious survivors, and listing ships in the distance. As the sea furiously beats against the shoreline, waves explode beyond the rocks in a froth of white. The motion of the waves, the distant rain shaft, the battered ship, and even the bodies of the fleeing castaways fill the scene with strong, opposing diagonal lines. The lighthouse standing solidly upright at the painting's center counters all of this activity.

The strong colors of the shipwrecked survivors' clothing stand out against the palette of greens, grays, and browns in the turbulent sea. Clearing skies cast the survivors in an eerie glow; dark tones at the left and lower edges and in the waves themselves draw further attention to the bright figures.

German Nationalism from the 19th century, among many other things, celebrated Arminius, the leader of Germanic tribes who defeated the Roman army at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. The battle, recorded in detail by Roman historians Tacitus (c 56-120 CE) and Cassius Dio (155-235 CE), became forgotten in time, and interest in it was not revived until the Renaissance. Amazingly, the site of the battle was only rediscovered in 1987, and excavated from 1989.

Its hero Arminius has been painted occasionally, especially in the German nationalist context. Johannes Gehrts preferred to elaborate the new myth, in his Armin Bids Goodbye to Thusnelda. This is presumably intended to show Arminius leaving the princess on his way to the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, five years before he abducted her. The couple are shown with the blonde hair and fair complexions claimed to be characteristic of Germanic peoples, and could easily have stepped out of a Wagner opera.

A zigzagging motion leads up through the lower half of the picture to the painting held in the artist’s hands. Only the back of the painting is shown directly, with the front seen only in the mirror. This alludes to the era’s view of art as a mirror held up to life.

Wilhelm Bendz was keenly interested in the new role emerging for artists in the early 19th century; they were no longer regarded as specialist craftsmen, but as intellectual workers, as artists in the modern sense. In the 1820s, he painted a number of pictures of artists at work. The artist in this picture is Bendz’s fellow student Ditlev Blunck engaged in painting a portrait of Jørgen Sonne, a painter of battle scenes.

Wilhelm Bendz, A Young Artist (Ditlev Blunck) Examining a Sketch in a Mirror, 1826, SMK

A young artist is taking a break from his work, holding up a study in front of a mirror to see how the composition would look in reverse. The picture gives an impression of how the painters of the time saw themselves: As serious, self-aware artists. The particular painter in this picture is standing in a crowded room surrounded by his tools and paraphernalia: a paintbox, palette, and easel as well as a skull and a sketchbook suggesting that careful studies precede the final painting.

The painting has two main peculiarities. First, the frieze is not viewed here from the ground, as it normally would have been, but the friends of Phidias, together with the viewer of the painting, are at a similar height with the frieze, which was high up on the wall of the cella of the temple, due to a scaffolding construction. At the same time, the staging on the scaffolding at height, illustrates the difficult working conditions that applied to the execution of the frieze. Today, the frieze can be seen by visitors at eye level in the British Museum, where Alma-Tadema will also have seen it during his first stay in London in 1861.

Secondly, and probably most remarkably, Alma-Tadema colored the frieze. After finds of color remains in Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 19th century, it led to some discussions about the polychromy of ancient monuments and sculptures.

Both pictures mark a decisive break with the style of the artist's father Lucas Cranach the Elder, and even though it was not until the following year that the Elder Cranach left Wittenberg for Augsburg at the behest of the deposed Elector Johann Friedrich, it is clear that his son was establishing an independent style. The palette and overall tonality with strong whites, the figural style and the cohesive and dynamic composition belong to the younger generation. In some respects this invigoration of the Cranach family output recalls the energy of Lucas Cranach the Elder's early work in Vienna almost fifty years before. In the figure of Saint Paul catapulted forward from his falling horse we see an echo of the turbaned figure at the left of Cranach the Elder's altarpiece of the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine in Budapest.

Saul pursues the Christians with a group of soldiers on horseback. On the way to Damascus a light from heaven suddenly envelops him, he falls off his horse and is dazzeled. The voice of Christ asks him: Saul, Saul why are you pursuing me? Those who rode ahead stop and turn with fright to their leader. The horses behind and their riders panic, one soldier runs to help his leader. The soldiers' weapons identify them as officers. The city of Damascus is depicted as a view of Mansfeld castle.

The conversion of the Roman persecutor of Christians is considered a Lutheran program image. After a vision from God near Damascus, Saul became the apostle Paul. For Luther, the biblical event was a symbol of human salvation through the grace of God alone. One art historian suspected that the picture was an epitaph for Count Wolff I of Mansfeld, who died in 1546 during a military campaign by Emperor Charles V and was buried in Stuttgart.

Influenced by the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais, and impressed by their dedication to a romantic ideal in the pursuit of their art, F.W. Burton forged friendships with them and other members of their circle. He was close to Edward Burne-Jones, sharing his scholarly approach to art history, literature and Italian art. In 1865 he purchased Rossetti’s Salutation of Beatrice (1859-63) from William Morris, revealing strong admiration for the poet and artist.

Burton worked in watercolours throughout his career, no oils by him are known. He was appointed Director of the National Gallery in London, in 1874, where he remained until his retirement in 1894. He acquired many significant works while Director including Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks.

Placido Costanzi made this modello, or presentation sketch, in preparation for an apse fresco in a Roman church. He may have shown this highly finished oil study to his patrons for approval before embarking on the actual architectural decoration. Costanzi incorporated the curving ribs of the apse, which would have been carved or molded gilt plaster in the church itself, into the ornamental decoration as a frame for the Virgin.

Above an elaborate sunburst with her monogram, the Virgin Mary dominates the central panel. Saint Luke, holding a scroll that reads "Ecce Virgo" or "Behold the Virgin," occupies the left panel, and Saint John the Evangelist looks up at her from the right. Costanzi used the typical light palette, weightless putti and angels, and artificial sky of Italian Rococo architectural decorators.