1.
1855 in art
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Events from the year 1855 in art. July 3 – John Everett Millais and Effie Gray marry, jean Auguste Dominique Ingres exhibits Venus Anadyomene, which has taken him forty years to complete. William Bell Scott begins painting murals of Northumbrian history at Wallington Hall, the Bavarian National Museum is founded by King Maximilian II of Bavaria. Kelly, American sculptor and illustrator September 8 – William Friese-Greene, English photographer and cinematographer Willis E
2.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victorias reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tears, Idle Tears, Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Tithonus. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success and he is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England and he was born into a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was rector of Somersby, also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a family and was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music. He was comfortably well off for a clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe. Alfred Tennysons mother, Elizabeth Fytche, was the daughter of Stephen Fytche, vicar of St. James Church, Louth and rector of Withcall, Tennysons father carefully attended to the education and training of his children. Tennyson and two of his brothers were writing poetry in their teens and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the sister of Alfreds future wife. Another of Tennysons brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum, Tennyson was a student of Louth Grammar School for four years and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he joined a society called the Cambridge Apostles. A portrait of Tennyson by George Frederic Watts is in Trinitys collection, at Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends. His first publication was a collection of his rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellors Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, reportedly, it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellors gold medal. He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830, claribel and Mariana, which later took their place among Tennysons most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day. In the spring of 1831, Tennysons father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree and he returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family
3.
Robert Browning
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Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
4.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from about the age of six and her mothers collection of her poems forms one of the largest collections extant of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15 she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life, later in life she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum for the pain from an age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health. In the 1830s Elizabeth was introduced to society through her cousin. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838 and she wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation and prose and she campaigned for the abolition of slavery and her work helped influence reform in the child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth, Elizabeths volume Poems brought her great success, attracting the admiration of the writer Robert Browning. Their correspondence, courtship and marriage were carried out in secret, following the wedding she was indeed disinherited by her father. The couple moved to Italy in 1846, where she would live for the rest of her life and they had one son, Robert Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. She died in Florence in 1861, a collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death. Elizabeths work had a influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe. She is remembered for such poems as How Do I Love Thee. some of Elizabeth Barretts family had lived in Jamaica since 1655. Their wealth derived mainly from Edward Barrett, owner of 10,000 acres in the estates of Cinnamon Hill, Cornwall, Cambridge, Elizabeths maternal grandfather owned sugar plantations, mills, glassworks and ships that traded between Jamaica and Newcastle. What the family believed to be their genealogy in relation to Jamaica is unclear, the family wished to hand down their name, stipulating that Barrett should always be held as a surname. In some cases inheritance was given on condition that the name was used by the beneficiary, given this strong tradition, Elizabeth used Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett on legal documents and before she was married often signed herself Elizabeth Barrett Barrett or EBB. Elizabeths father chose to raise his family in England while his business enterprises remained in Jamaica, the fortune of Elizabeths mothers line, the Graham Clarke family, also derived in part from slave labour, and was considerable. Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall and her parents were Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke, Elizabeth was the eldest of 12 children. All lived to adulthood except for one girl, who died at the age of three, when Elizabeth was eight, the children all had nicknames, Elizabeth was Ba
5.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt, Rossetti was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a precursor of the Aesthetic movement. Rossettis art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism and his early poetry was influenced by John Keats. His later poetry was characterised by the complex interlinking of thought and feeling, especially in his sonnet sequence, poetry and image are closely entwined in Rossettis work. Rossettis personal life was linked to his work, especially his relationships with his models and muses Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth. The son of émigré Italian scholar Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti and his wife Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori, Rossetti was born in London, England and his family and friends called him Gabriel, but in publications he put the name Dante first in honour of Dante Alighieri. He was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti, critic William Michael Rossetti and his father was a Roman Catholic, at least prior to his marriage, and his mother was an Anglican, ostensibly Gabriel was baptized as and was a practicing Anglican. During his childhood, Rossetti was home educated and often read the Bible, along with the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, the youthful Rossetti is described as self-possessed, articulate, passionate and charismatic but also ardent, poetic and feckless. Like all his siblings, he aspired to be a poet and attended Kings College School and he also wished to be a painter, having shown a great interest in Medieval Italian art. He studied at Henry Sass Drawing Academy from 1841 to 1845, when he enrolled in the Antique School of the Royal Academy, after leaving the Royal Academy, Rossetti studied under Ford Madox Brown, with whom he retained a close relationship throughout his life. Following the exhibition of William Holman Hunts painting The Eve of St. Agnes, the painting illustrated a poem by the little-known John Keats. Rossettis own poem, The Blessed Damozel, was an imitation of Keats, together they developed the philosophy of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which they founded along with John Everett Millais. Their approach was to return to the abundant detail, intense colours, the eminent critic John Ruskin wrote, Every Pre-Raphaelite landscape background is painted to the last touch, in the open air, from the thing itself. Every Pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a portrait of some living person. Rossettis first major paintings in oil display the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement and his Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini portray Mary as a teenage girl. I saw at once that he was not an orthodox boy, the mixture of genius and dilettantism of both men shut me up for the moment, and whetted my curiosity. Although his work subsequently won support from John Ruskin, Rossetti only rarely exhibited thereafter, in 1850, Rossetti met Elizabeth Siddal, an important model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters
6.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
7.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
8.
John Everett Millais
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Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A child prodigy, at the age of eleven Millais became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents generating considerable controversy, by the mid-1850s Millais was moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite style and developing a new and powerful form of realism in his art. His later works were successful, making Millais one of the wealthiest artists of his day. Millaiss personal life has played a significant role in his reputation. His wife Effie was formerly married to the critic John Ruskin, Millais was born in Southampton, England in 1829, of a prominent Jersey-based family. His parents were John William Millais and Emily Mary Millais, most of his early childhood was spent in Jersey, to which he retained a strong devotion throughout his life. The author Thackeray once asked him when England conquered Jersey, the family moved to Dinan in Brittany for a few years in his childhood. His mothers forceful personality was the most powerful influence on his early life and she had a keen interest in art and music, and encouraged her sons artistic bent, promoting the relocating of the family to London to help develop contacts at the Royal Academy of Art. He later said I owe everything to my mother and his prodigious artistic talent won him a place at the Royal Academy schools at the unprecedented age of eleven. While there, he met William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti with whom he formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in September 1848 in his home on Gower Street. Millaiss Christ in the House of His Parents was highly controversial because of its portrayal of a working class Holy Family labouring in a messy carpentry workshop. Later works were controversial, though less so. Millais achieved popular success with A Huguenot, which depicts a couple about to be separated because of religious conflicts. He repeated this theme in later works. All these early works were painted with great attention to detail, in paintings such as Ophelia Millais created dense and elaborate pictorial surfaces based on the integration of naturalistic elements. This approach has been described as a kind of pictorial eco-system, Mariana is a painting that Millais painted in 1850-51 based on the play Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare and the poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from 1830. In the play, the young Mariana was to be married and this style was promoted by the critic John Ruskin, who had defended the Pre-Raphaelites against their critics
9.
Matthew Arnold
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Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a writer, a type of writer who chastises. The Reverend John Keble, who would one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Thomas Arnold admired Kebles hymns in The Christian Year, only reversing himself with exasperation when this old friend became a Romeward-tending High Church reactionary in the 1830s. In 1828, Arnolds father was appointed Headmaster of Rugby School and his family took up residence. In 1831, Arnold was tutored by his uncle, Rev. John Buckland in the village of Laleham. In 1834, the Arnolds occupied a home, Fox How. William Wordsworth was a neighbour and close friend, in 1836, Arnold was sent to Winchester College, but in 1837 he returned to Rugby School where he was enrolled in the fifth form. He moved to the form in 1838 and thus came under the direct tutelage of his father. He wrote verse for the manuscript Fox How Magazine co-produced with his brother Tom for the enjoyment from 1838 to 1843. During his years there, he won prizes for English essay writing. His prize poem, Alaric at Rome, was printed at Rugby, in 1841, he won an open scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. During his residence at Oxford, his friendship ripened with Arthur Hugh Clough, Arnold attended John Henry Newmans sermons at St. Marys but did not join the Oxford Movement. His father died suddenly of disease in 1842, and Fox How became his familys permanent residence. Arnolds poem Cromwell won the 1843 Newdigate prize and he graduated in the following year with a 2nd class honours degree in Literae Humaniores. In 1845, after an interlude of teaching at Rugby, he was elected Fellow of Oriel College. In 1847, he became Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, in 1849, he published his first book of poetry, The Strayed Reveller
10.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC, was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was immensely popular with the public and wrote a stream of bestselling novels which earned him a considerable fortune. He coined the phrases the great unwashed, pursuit of the almighty dollar, the pen is mightier than the sword, dweller on the threshold, and he had two elder brothers, William Earle Lytton Bulwer and Henry, later Lord Dalling and Bulwer. When Edward was four his father died and his moved to London. He was a delicate, neurotic child and was discontented at a number of boarding schools, but he was precocious and Mr Wallington at Baling encouraged him to publish, at the age of fifteen, an immature work, Ishmael and Other Poems. In 1822 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he met John Auldjo, in 1825 he won the Chancellors Gold Medal for English verse. In the following year he took his B. A. degree and printed, for private circulation and he purchased a commission in the army, but sold it without serving. In August 1827, against his mothers wishes, he married Rosina Doyle Wheeler, when they married his mother withdrew his allowance and he was forced to work for a living. They had two children, Lady Emily Elizabeth Bulwer-Lytton, and Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton who became Governor-General and his writing and political work strained their marriage while his infidelity embittered Rosina, in 1833 they separated acrimoniously and in 1836 the separation became legal. Three years later, Rosina published Cheveley, or the Man of Honour, in June 1858, when her husband was standing as parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, she indignantly denounced him at the hustings. He retaliated by threatening her publishers, withholding her allowance, finally he had her committed to a mental asylum. But, after a public outcry she was released a few weeks later and this incident was chronicled in her memoir, A Blighted Life. For years she continued her attacks upon her husband’s character, the death of Bulwer-Lyttons mother in 1843 greatly saddened him. His own exhaustion of toil and study had been completed by great anxiety and grief, on 20 February 1844, in accordance with his mothers will, he changed his surname from Bulwer to Bulwer-Lytton and assumed the arms of Lytton by royal licence. His widowed mother had done the same in 1811, but, his brothers remained plain Bulwer. When King Otto of Greece abdicated in 1862, he was offered the crown of Greece, in 1866 Bulwer-Lytton was raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton. According to the Fulham Football Club, he resided in the original Craven Cottage. Bulwer-Lytton had long suffered with a disease of the ear and for the last two or three years of his life he lived in Torquay nursing his health
11.
Arthur Hughes (artist)
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Arthur Hughes was an English painter and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1846 he entered the art school at Somerset House, his first master being Alfred Stevens, here he met John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt, and became one of the Pre-Raphaelite group of painters. In 1855 Hughes married Tryphena Foord, his model for April Love, Hughes died in Kew Green, London in 1915, leaving about 700 known paintings and drawings, along with over 750 book illustrations. Following the death of Tryphena Hughes in 1921, their daughter Emily had to move to a smaller house, there was, therefore, a shortage of space. As a result, she had her father’s remaining preparatory sketches and he was the father of the English painter Arthur Ford Hughes and the uncle of another, Edward Robert Hughes. Hughes is buried in Richmond Cemetery and his best-known paintings are April Love and The Long Engagement, both of which depict troubled couples contemplating the transience of love and beauty. Like Millais, Hughes also painted Ophelia which is housed at Toledo Museum of Art, hughess version of the latter is in the form of a secular triptych, a technique he repeated for scenes from Shakespeares As You Like It. His works are noted for their magical, glowing colouring and delicate draughtsmanship, the beautiful oil portrait Springtide, first exhibited in Dublin in 1855, features his wife Tryphena. Hughes was in contact with the writer George MacDonald and illustrated some of his books, as well as producing numerous illustrations for Norman MacLeods monthly magazine. List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings - includes catalogue of Arthur Hughes work with links to individual paintings articles
