Undoubtedly, the court, which delighted in what we call “bling” today, would prefer the portrait by van Loo, who fulfilled everything required of him. He kowtowed to convention in style and beauty, and painted what a princess should look like.

Bosch eschewed the Italian emphasis on linear perspective and anatomical study in favour of his own version of space impregnated with spiritual or numinous force.

At a certain point in his life as an artist, Salvador Dali fused two modes of painting that at first glance appear to be incompatible.

We are immediately drawn to a group of weirdly frightening and strangely beautiful engravings and pen-and-ink drawings depicting winged, feathered and scaled creatures, shamans and crowned goddesses, erotic beauty-and-beast scenes, Bosch-ian aspects of hell, Dali-esque apocalypses.

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