Classical Love Story

Horace and Lydia (1924) by the British painter John Collier (1850-1934).

Collier one of the most prominent British painters of his generation shows here a fictional .dialogue between the great Roman poet Horace and Lydia.
Despite it’s a well done painting, one shouldn’t forget that it was done in 1924! Meaning it was much more than out of fashion. Collier kept stubborn to his 19th century style ignoring all what happened around him.

Heroic History

The Expulsion of the Danes from Manchester 910 AD (1879-93) by the English painter Ford Maddox Brown (1821-1893).

This is a fresco in the Manchester Town Hall. These “illustrations” of great events of the own history were very popular in the 19th century. As frescos in public buildings they gave the illusion of a long important history. Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian-era Neo-gothic building which only pretends to be medieval underlines this circumstance.

It’s interesting that Maddox Brown doesn’t pretend to be realistic, he presented a kind of naïve comic strip. Nice is the archer who seems to be taken from an Italian renaissance painting.

Hessian Mercenaries

Hessian Mercenaries by the American illustrator Mead Schaeffer (1898-1980). The illustration was done for the book Everybody's Washington by Alden Arthur Knipe published in 1931.

Despite some may think that’s a simple book illustration, you should notice the brilliant simplifications, the string colors and shadows. That’s Art Deco at it’s best.