#painting

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Hidden picture beneath Vermeer’s ‘Girl with the Red Hat’ may be the artist’s only existing male portrait, research reveals

The underpainting, a quite conventional portrait of a man, was previously believed to be by a different artist

by Martin Bailey

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/18/hidden-picture-beneath-vermeers-girl-with-the-red-hat-may-be-the-artists-first-portrait-of-a-man-research-reveals

Vermeer at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/56970

Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat (around 1664-69). The work depicts a young girl turning toward the viewer, her lips slightly parted. She wears a broad, brilliantly colored red hat whose bold hue dominates the composition, contrasting with the rich blue of her cloak. Her face is softly illuminated. Behind her, a tapestry serves as backdrop. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Girl_with_a_Red_Hat_(Vermeer)#/media/File:Vermeer_-_Girl_with_a_Red_Hat.JPG

In the glow of the candle

Joseph Wright of Derby put science at the centre of his art. Eclipsed in his lifetime, his work still burns with radical ideas

By Charlotte Mullins

https://aeon.co/essays/joseph-wright-of-derby-put-science-at-the-centre-of-his-art?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f25553cb7b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_09_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

About Joseph Wright of Derby at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Joseph+Wright+of+Derby

Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight by Joseph Wright of Derby (1765; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). The middle figure is thought to be P.P.Burdett. The painting shows three men gathered around a small-scale reproduction of the famed Roman sculpture, the Borghese Gladiator. Their faces are illuminated by the flickering glow of a single candle, which casts deep shadows across the scene and highlights the contours of the classical figure. The men’s varied expressions—ranging from intense study to quiet admiration—emphasize the act of learning and contemplation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Persons_Viewing_the_Gladiator_by_Candlelight

27 Artworks By John Singer Sargent, The Gilded Age Painter Who Toed The Line Between Tradition And Avant-Garde

From the Portrait of Madame X to Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, John Singer Sargent's paintings and illustrations show why he's considered a virtuoso artist.

By Andrew Milne, Edited By Jaclyn Anglis

https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-singer-sargent

John Singer Sargent at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/36606

John Singer Sargent's painting Portrait of Madame X was controversial when it was first unveiled. There is an assertion and showiness in the expanse of white skin – from her high forehead down her graceful neck, shoulders, and arms. Although the black of her dress is bold, it is also deep, recessive and mysterious. She is surrounded by a rich brown which is at once luminous and dark enough to provide contrast to the skin tones. Most disconcerting is the whiteness of the skin, an overt contrivance of "aristocratic pallor"; by contrast her red ear is a jarring reminder of the color of flesh unadorned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Madame_X#/media/File:Madame_X_(Madame_Pierre_Gautreau),_John_Singer_Sargent,_1884_(unfree_frame_crop).jpg

THE SECRET LIVES OF DINOSAURS is out NEXT month!

We’ve been busy organising a book tour that will include talks & signings across the UK, USA, Canada, & Europe. The first will be at the wonderful Oxford University Museum of Natural History on Friday, 10 October 2025. I hope you can join us at one of these events – more details soon.

As urgent and relevant today as it ever was': The radical manifesto hidden in Georges Seurat's 1884 masterpiece

Georges Seurat's once-mocked painting Bathers at Asnières is both an "exquisite distillation of the very essence of summer" and "a modern wonder in the art of seeing".

By Kelly Grovier

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20250812-seurat-radical-manifesto-bathers-at-asnieres-masterpiece

Baigneurs a Asnières. Bathers at Asnières is an 1884 oil on canvas painting by the French artist Georges Pierre Seurat, the first of his two masterpieces on the monumental scale. The canvas is of a suburban, placid Parisian riverside scene. Isolated figures, with their clothes piled sculpturally on the riverbank, together with trees, austere boundary walls and buildings, and the River Seine are presented in a formal layout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathers_at_Asni%C3%A8res#/media/File:Baigneurs_a_Asnieres.jpg