Portal:Visual arts

Plate 21 depicting a male red-capped parrakeet

Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs by Edward Lear. He produced 175 copies for sale to subscribers as a part-publication, which were later bound as a book. Lear started painting parrots in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. The latter included those of Edward Smith Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, who had a large menagerie at Knowsley Hall, and Benjamin Leadbeater, a taxidermist and trader in specimens. Lear drew onto lithographic plates for printing by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, who was known for the quality of his reproductions of fine art.

Although the book was a financial failure, Lear's paintings of parrots established his reputation as one of the best natural history artists of his time. It found him work with John Gould, Stanley and other leading contemporary naturalists, and the young Queen Victoria engaged him to help her with her painting technique. Parrots was a forerunner to the major volumes of bird paintings by Gould, and Lear's work has influenced children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak as well as bird specialists like William Y. Cooper, Elizabeth Butterworth and Walton Ford. (Full article...)

“	Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.	”
	— Robert Motherwell, The Times (November 17, 1985)

Dalí in 1939

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol gcYC (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí (/ˈdɑːli, dɑːˈliː/ DAH-lee, dah-LEE, Catalan: [səlβəˈðo ðəˈli], Spanish: [salβaˈðoɾ ðaˈli]), was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.

Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments. (Full article...)

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• ... that the documentary comedy films Being Canadian and When Jews Were Funny explore the filmmakers' cultural identity through interviews with dozens of comedians?
• ... that Bernie Wrightson spent seven years drawing an illustrated edition of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein?
• ... that filmmaker Randal Plunkett, 21st Baron of Dunsany, has seen the return of many species of bird and plant, as well as pine martens, stoats and otters, to his ancestral lands with rewilding?
• ... that when the 1959 Michigan football team defeated Ohio State, opposing coach Woody Hayes whirled and hurled pieces of clothing, drawing a comparison to a "hot stripper"?
• ... that the documentary Railway with a Heart of Gold has actual footage of a derailment captured whilst the filmmaker was attached to the side of the train?
• ... that after Sydney Parkinson died on the return leg of the first voyage of James Cook, some of his drawings were engraved for publication in his Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas?