Karl Jenkins (b. 1944) shot to fame with Adiemus, which features a melting pot of Celtic, African, New Age, and world music elements. The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace advocates for world peace through a powerful anti-war message. Palladio drew inspiration from mathematics and architecture. Karl Jenkins blends his Welsh musical roots with contemporary writing in Tros Y Garreg, offering a unique concerto for two harps. Cantata Memoria commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster with grace, honoring the victims. Finally, Eloise is an opera for children based on a classic fairytale.

Understanding Karl Jenkins in 6 Compositions

Trying to place Sir Karl Jenkins in a single category is nearly impossible. There are so many influences present in his music that it might be best to describe him as a world citizen with a classical heart. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of his music is his “cross-genre” composition, Adiemus—in Japan it is “healing music” while in Germany they refer to it as “pop music.” In the following five works, you will be taken on a rollercoaster of emotions, ideas, musical influences, and genre-defying compositions.

1. Adiemus

Karl Jenkins’s album, Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary, propelled the composer to international fame. It is his first album and gives a glimpse of the future soundscape listeners would be drawn into. It is almost impossible to describe the album. It is a melting pot of Celtic influences mixed with African drums and rhythms. There is also a New Age slant in some tracks, classical forms and methods, and world music influences.

The titular song, Adiemus, has been used in countless film soundtracks and television commercials. Delta Airlines also used the title track for a television commercial, advertising campaigns, and pre-departure videos on Delta flights. It is interesting to note that Karl Jenkins spent some time in the advertising industry. It is fair to say he knows a lot about capturing an audience’s attention through effective soundtracks and advertising!

Adiemus is sung in a made-up language and combines classical and world music elements that create a haunting effect. The words, or vocalizations, provided by Miriam Stockley and Mary Carewe become another musical instrument in their own right. Thus, the “lyrics” (without any intrinsic meaning) become music. The result is a wall of sound, combining a full classical orchestra with multiple dubs of Stockley and Carewe’s vocals in parallel as a giant choir.

2. The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, 1937. Source: Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid

The above lyrics by an anonymous medieval poet may be simple, but they carry a strong message: be vigilant at all times and be prepared to fight.

War is as old as humanity itself. Artists have portrayed its horrors for the world to see, and composers like Beethoven give an almost shot-by-shot portrayal of the Battle of Vittoria.

Yet, the sanctity of human life never renders war a justifiable method to settle disputes. Jenkins’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is a call to humanity to set aside their differences and seek out peace. It is also the composer’s most performed work, which earned him fifth place in the Classic FM Hall of Fame in 2015, and in 2023, he was named the most popular living composer in Classic FM’s Ultimate Hall of Fame. Quite an achievement for a living composer!

Jenkins borrows from the form of the Medieval mass and uses the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Benedictus to construct a narrative about the atrocities of war and calls for worldwide peace. Overall, The Armed Man starts with the call to take up arms (l’homme armé), followed by a prayer (Call to Prayer) begging for divine mercy (Kyrie). Save Me from Bloody Men, Hymn Before Action, Charge!, Angry Flames, and Torches portray the horrors of war. The aftermath (Agnus Dei, Now the Guns have Stopped) precedes a prayer of blessing (Benedictus) that is heard for the peacemakers, and when peace reigns (Better is Peace), the anti-war message is driven home. The work was commissioned by the Royal Armouries and premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2000.

The Sanctus, with the video of violence in the background on big screens, is almost a twisted glorification. Instead of glorifying the divine, humans glorify war and violence—they worship the gods of war. The incessant drums play a march-like rhythm akin to men marching off to war. The following section, Hymn Before Action (at 26:10), uses the text of Rudyard Kipling’s eponymous poem. While the poem is set in a military context, it meditates acceptance, courage, and self-awareness when faced with a difficult situation. The text deals with finding the strength within yourself when faced with difficult decisions and the wisdom to make the right decision for the common good.

The Benedictus is one of the most iconic sections of this mass. In its simplicity, Jenkins creates a soundscape unlike any other through the violoncello’s devastatingly high-pitched solo. When you listen carefully, you will hear that it is also the opening melody of the choir’s entrance with the word “Benedictus.” In the traditional mass setting, the Benedictus is a song of praise for the Divine’s enduring faithfulness to his promises while also expressing praise and thanksgiving for the goodness and mercy bestowed upon humanity.

3. Palladio

According to Karl Jenkins, Palladio draws inspiration from the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, and it is also a homage to him. In his day, Palladio was a celebrated architect who designed and built numerous churches and villas for wealthy families. The architect is celebrated for using harmony, order, and symmetry. Two hallmarks of Palladio’s buildings are the mathematical harmony of the proportions and his reliance on classical elements from ancient Roman models, especially Vitruvius.

The work is written in a Baroque form, namely a concerto grosso. Instead of the solo concerto where the orchestra accompanies a soloist, there is a small group of musicians playing the solo parts (concertino). The rest of the orchestra provides the accompaniment (ripieno).

In the first movement, marked Allegretto (at 00:16), the violoncellos and double basses lay the “foundation” on which the higher strings (violins and violas) build their dramatic lines. During the second movement, marked Largo (at 04:06), Jenkins follows the model set by his predecessors with a quiet middle movement. It brings a welcome respite from the drama found in the first movement. A soloist from each of the first and second violin sections plays the solo parts while the rest of the string orchestra forms the ripieno. The last movement, Vivace (at 10:29), sounds like a lively perpetual motion machine with constant movement and conversation between the different groups of instruments.

4. Tros y Garreg (Across the Stone)

Karl Jenkins’s Harp Concerto showcases his love for his native Wales while combining his ability to compose accessible music in a classical idiom with world music influences. In this work, two harps take center stage, offering listeners an exhibition of the harp’s versatility.

Jenkins drew upon Celtic Welsh melodies, especially in the fourth movement, Tros y  Garreg (Over the Stone or Crossing the Stone). The text is attributed to the Welsh poet John Ceiriog Hughes and captures a warrior’s sentiments after returning home. He contemplates all the stone must have seen throughout its life—battles lost and won, love and hatred—and yet it never speaks of those things.

In this movement, the orchestra plays a traditional Welsh melody while the harps weave their improvisation around the original melody. During the coronation of King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla in 2023, this work was featured to show the king’s longstanding and heartfelt relationship with Wales. But the connection to the newly crowned king and Jenkins also stretches back further; while still Prince of Wales, Charles commissioned a harp concerto from Jenkins, and Tros y Garreg was one of the movements.

5. Cantata Memoria for the Children

Karl Jenkins composed Cantata Memoria to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan mining disaster. On October 21, 1966, the village of Aberfan in South Wales saw a catastrophe that claimed the lives of 116 children and 28 adults. A landslide of coal waste engulfed the village and the Pantglas Junior School which stood directly in the path of the coal slide. The event left an indelible scar on the community and the nation.

But in true Karl Jenkins style, it is not all doom and gloom nor is it a documentary telling of the story of the coal slide. It is a dedication to those who lost their lives and those who had to carry on with their lives after the disaster.

There are two distinct sections to the work, lasting around 20 and 35 minutes, respectively. The multilingual text features English, Welsh, and four texts from the Requiem Mass sung in Latin. Additionally, there are words (“eg”) that are also equivalent to why and light in Dutch, English, German, Latin, Spanish, Swedish, and Welsh. The aim of this is to give the work a specific local feeling but also a universal one.

Musically, apart from the texts taken from the Latin Requiem Mass, there are also quotations from John Rutter’s All Things Bright and Beautiful, an excerpt from Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, and a Welsh nursery rhyme. The Welsh love song, Myfanwy, can also be heard on the euphonium. The rescuers sang this song while digging for the victims.

The first part (starting at 6:18) deals with the intense tragedy and immediate aftermath of the coal slide. However, it is not a blow-by-blow retelling of the disaster but like a pendulum swinging among numerous points that are now part of the disaster’s legacy and memory. During the second part, the works move away from darkness toward the light. The memories and celebration of childhood feature prominently in the second part. With the final movement, Lux Eterna (eternal light), the celesta and bells are used prominently to symbolize the light that has overcome the darkness.

Jenkins and librettist Mererid Hopwood approached the subject matter and work, commissioned by S4C, a Welsh TV broadcast company, with sensitivity. Together they created a poignant ode not only to the victims of Aberfan but also to children worldwide who are caught in disasters.

6. Eloise

Lady Carol Barratt wrote the libretto for Karl Jenkins’s children’s opera, based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

After the King and Queen christened their daughter Eloise, the witch Volhek reminded them of their payment for an old promise: once they have a daughter, their sons will be taken away. Thus, Volhek turns them into ducks, and her band of Drogmires takes them away.

Eloise grows up and discovers her poor brothers’ fate and sets out to break the spell. Throughout her trials and tribulations and Volhek stealing Eloise’s voice, Eloise focuses on completing the task of weaving shirts from thistledown. She summons magical spinners to create special shirts for the ducks, and with her magical spoon, she summons three helpful men to help her succeed.

Eloise finally breaks the spell and drives wicked Volhek and the Drogmires away when the royal household arrives, and the princes are freed. Eloise’s favorite helpful man, whom she conjures again, promises to stay by her side forever.

What Inspires Karl Jenkins’s Music?

Karl Jenkins had a thorough training in the classical tradition with studies in harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration at the University of Cardiff and the Royal Academy of Music in London. So, the basic foundation is solid, but he does not sit and wait around for inspiration to strike or a muse to visit him. He incorporates his academic training with the mathematical harmony and order found in Renaissance architecture.

While some might call it inspiration, he prefers the term intuition and says he needs to write some music every day. In his own words: “I follow my nose—I don’t have a formula or a plan ahead.”

You may have noticed a wide variety of percussion in the works above, and for good reason. Jenkins started his professional music career as a jazz musician. Rather than using percussion instruments, especially drums, as a rhythmic element in his music as is the classical tradition, it holds a musical role therein as with jazz and rock music. He draws inspiration and ideas from ethnic percussion, especially South American rhythms and jazz percussion, to enrich his music.

William Hogarth was an influential English painter whose satirical paintings and engravings exposed the vices of the 18th century. Often regarded as a foundational figure in British visual culture, he forged a distinctly national artistic voice that distanced itself from European models. His work blended humor with acute observation, creating narrative cycles that captivated the public. Read on to explore his unique satirical style and its lasting historical and cultural influence.

Who Was William Hogarth?

William Hogarth was a pioneering English artist and one of the most notable satirists of the 18th century. Born in London to a financially struggling family, he experienced hardship early in life, including his father’s imprisonment in Fleet Prison due to debt. These formative incidents shaped Hogarth’s sensitivity to themes of vice, injustice, and social hypocrisy, which would later become central to his artistic identity.

Hogarth began his career in 1718 as an apprentice engraver and later studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Martin’s Lane, refining his technical skill and observational eye. By 1730, he had gained fame, helping to inspire the Copyright Act of 1735 to protect artists’ rights. He also published The Analysis of Beauty and was appointed Serjeant Painter to the Crown. His distinctive style profoundly influenced British art through his engravings, paintings, and portraits. Most notably, his narrative painting and visual satire paved the way for his series of Modern Moral Subjects, which satirized the manners and morals of his time.

A Harlot’s Progress: Plate One

One of Hogarth’s earliest and most groundbreaking series, A Harlot’s Progress, marks the beginning of the Modern Moral Subject. In six scenes, he follows the tragic descent of Mary Hackabout, a young woman who arrives in London seeking opportunity but instead encounters exploitation and corruption. The series exposes a society that condemns vice while simultaneously sustaining it.

In the first plate, set outside the Bell Inn, Mary steps off the York Wagon and is immediately appraised by the infamous procuress Mother Needham, as a lecherous gentleman watches nearby. Her youthful innocence is framed against the chaotic energy of London’s streets. Through this interaction, Hogarth introduces the central theme of the cycle: how quickly vulnerability can be exploited in an urban environment driven by greed. This opening plate sets the tone for the harsher developments that will follow.

A Harlot’s Progress: Plate Three

By Plate Three, Mary is firmly trapped in the world of prostitution. Hogarth places her in a cramped, disorderly room filled with scattered garments, a broken mirror, and mocking faces. Each detail signals her decline: the shattered mirror hints at lost integrity, while the surrounding chaos reflects her unstable life. This scene marks Mary’s transition from initial victimization to inevitable consequence, preparing the viewer for the somber ending of the series.

A Harlot’s Progress: Plate Six

Plate Six concludes the cycle with Mary on her deathbed, surrounded by mourners and the stark effects of syphilis. Here, Hogarth highlights the brutal outcome of her life, underscoring how neglect and exploitation destroy vulnerable individuals. The final plate reinforces the series’ central message: moral decay is both personal and societal.

A Rake’s Progress: Plate One

Following the success of A Harlot’s Progress, Hogarth created A Rake’s Progress, expanding his examination of vice through the story of a male counterpart. Across eight meticulously detailed scenes, Hogarth chronicles Tom Rakewell’s descent from sudden inheritance to madness and ruin. This series exemplifies Hogarth’s sequential narrative style, effectively telling a complete moral story through visual art—an innovative approach for its time. It reflects the realities of society, highlighting themes of luxury, vice, debt, and their consequences.

In the opening plate, Tom inherits his father’s estate, already revealing vanity and irresponsibility. Surrounded by servants, lawyers, and Sarah Young, his neglected pregnant fiancée, he begins his path toward moral corruption. Hogarth fills the scene with symbolic details—discarded household items, greedy faces, and gestures of excess—foreshadowing the reckless behavior that will ultimately lead to Tom’s downfall.

A Rake’s Progress: Plate Six

By Plate Six, Tom’s downfall has accelerated. He is depicted in a frenzied gaming den, surrounded by gamblers wholly absorbed in their wagers. At the center of the plate, he curses his misfortune as he realizes he has lost his remaining possessions. A fire rages nearby, yet the players ignore the danger—a vivid metaphor for their moral blindness. This scene not only heightens the drama but also reinforces Hogarth’s critique of reckless excess, addiction, and the social environments that encourage such destructive behavior. As the narrative progresses, the tragic end of the protagonist is revealed.

A Rake’s Progress: Plate Eight

The series concludes in the notorious Bedlam asylum, where Tom, now destitute and mentally broken, is surrounded by other sufferers and gawking visitors who treat the inmates as entertainment. Sarah Young alone remains by his side, embodying compassion in contrast to the cruelty of the onlookers. Through this tragic conclusion, Hogarth’s message becomes clear: uncontrolled debauchery inevitably leads to destruction, regardless of wealth, gender, or social status.

Marriage a-la-Mode: Plate One

Marriage A-la-Mode is a six-part satirical series that exposes the greed, decadence, and moral emptiness of aristocratic marriages built on financial convenience rather than love. Painted around 1743 and later engraved, the series depicts the marriage between the son of the Earl of Squander and the daughter of a wealthy Alderman of the City of London.

In the first plate, the young Viscount, who is already infected with syphilis, admires himself in a mirror while his future wife talks with the lawyer Silvertongue. The chained dogs in the corner serve as a powerful metaphor for the oppressive bond they are about to enter. Hogarth fills the scene with symbolic details that critique the vanity, corruption, and self-deception underlying their union.

Plate Two: The Tête à Tête

By the second plate, the marriage has deteriorated. The Viscount returns home after a night of debauchery, while the Countess lounges in boredom and indifference. The cluttered room, broken sword, and subtle erotic clues paint a picture of emotional estrangement and moral erosion.

Plate Five: The Bagnio

In the fifth plate, the story escalates dramatically. In the dim light of the candles in a bagnio, the Viscount confronts his wife and her lover, Silvertongue. A violent duel leads to the Viscount’s fatal wound, while the Countess pleads desperately for forgiveness. Silvertongue flees through the window. The scene is charged with tension and theatricality, encapsulating the personal tragedy born from social ambition and marital hypocrisy.

Plate Six: The Lady’s Death

The final plate brings the story to its grim close. The Countess, disgraced and widowed, has taken poison after Silvertongue’s execution. Her disfigured child, suffering from congenital syphilis, clings to her in her last moments. Her father, rather than offering comfort, removes the wedding ring—the object that set her suffering in motion. Hogarth concludes with a powerful indictment of aristocratic corruption, revealing how privilege can mask but not prevent moral collapse.

Beer Street and Gin Lane

In contrast to the aristocratic focus of Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth shifts to the lower classes in his companion prints Beer Street and Gin Lane. Conceived as propaganda against the Gin Craze, the engravings present two starkly opposing visions of urban life. Beer Street celebrates industrious, contented citizens enjoying wholesome beer, depicted within a clean and lively environment. Gin Lane, its dark counterpart, portrays the devastating effects of gin addiction: starvation, neglect, madness, and death. Through this juxtaposition, Hogarth extends his broader concern for public virtue and social reform, emphasizing how civic health depends on personal moderation and responsible governance.

The Four Stages of Cruelty: Cruelty in Perfection

In The Four Stages of Cruelty, Hogarth addresses the evolution of violence and the moral dangers of unchecked brutality. The series follows Tom Nero, whose youthful maltreatment of animals escalates into severe crimes. By Plate III, Cruelty in Perfection, Nero has murdered his pregnant mistress and is apprehended in a rural churchyard. A pistol and stolen goods lie at his feet, signaling his descent into criminality. Hogarth surrounds him with an enraged crowd and the body of the woman he has killed, creating a composition filled with tension and moral accusation. The plate warns viewers that a society that tolerates small acts of cruelty fosters larger, more destructive ones.

The Reward of Cruelty

The final plate, The Reward of Cruelty, presents Nero’s dissected corpse in a surgical theater following his execution. Hogarth’s unflinching portrayal of the brutal post-mortem punishment mirrors the cruelty Nero inflicted on others. The scene functions as a grim moral lesson: a life steeped in violence ultimately leads to humiliation, suffering, and premature death. Hogarth uses the horror of the spectacle to reinforce his belief in moral responsibility and social deterrence.

An Election Entertainment

Political satire forms another significant facet of Hogarth’s oeuvre. An Election Entertainment, the first engraving based on Hogarth’s final painted cycle, The Humours of an Election, lampoons the corruption and disorder of 18th-century British politics. Inspired by the Oxfordshire election of 1754, the scene depicts Whig candidates courting votes amidst bribery, drunkenness, and chaos. Hogarth copies the painted composition with precision but enriches the print with sharper satirical emphasis. The work condemns political manipulation and highlights the fragility of civic virtue—concerns that echo across his entire career.

William Hogarth’s “Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism”

With Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism, Hogarth turns his satirical lens toward religion. The print presents a frenzied congregation overcome by hysteria, false visions, and clerical manipulation. Through exaggerated expressions and a crowded, turbulent composition, Hogarth critiques blind faith and the exploitation of religious devotion for personal or institutional gain. He suggests that fanaticism and ignorance are as harmful to society as the vices he condemns. Hogarth’s legacy remains as proof of the power of art that not only entertains but also reveals, provokes, and reforms the society it depicts. From political corruption to domestic hypocrisy and religious fanaticism, his works remain striking and relevant over time.

Claude Lorrain spent most of his working life in Rome. There he made his obsessive studies of the effects of light on the Campagna region. The scenes for many of his paintings deal with classical myth and history. His work is typified by the contrast of the eternity of nature and the human realm subject to time and decay. Dealing with mortality, his oeuvre is often remarked upon for its elegiac and emotional qualities.

Who Was Claude Lorrain?

Claude Lorrain, born Claude Gellée (c. 1600-82), was a Frenchman who spent almost all of his career in Rome. He was the most renowned landscape artist working in Italy, and helped to elevate the genre previously considered a lower form of art. All Claude scholars refer to an emotional impact intrinsic to his depictions of nature—often panoramic vistas containing in miniature the actions of humans. Hilliard T. Goldfarb writes of Claude’s landscapes as “a poetic means of expression” and as “informal, lyrical, and atmospheric…” A later landscape artist, John Constable, once remarked that Claude Lorrain was “the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw,” adding that he painted “the calm sunshine of the heart.”

So, what is it in Claude’s art that has provoked such praise? Can “mere” landscape art have an emotional impact? And, if so, how does Claude achieve this through his depictions of nature? This article will try to look at Claude’s art both generally and specifically by choosing three of his paintings to elucidate the general observations.

Nature and the Human

Claude’s paintings were classified as lontananze by his Italian contemporaries. Literally and roughly, this term means “distant views.” Indeed, most of his canvases portray a panoramic nature that progresses from the usual copse of trees in the foreground through to a vast natural space populated mostly by trees and water. Claude’s nature as he represents it is not only literally distant. It is an unknowable, mysterious, and eternal counterpoint to the human events that he portrays. The mortality and contingency of humans and their deeds are implicit.

These landscapes play on the tension of presence and remoteness. On the one hand, there is a sublime nature, while on the other this sublimity relativizes even the monumental cultural achievements of humanity—often embodied in the architectural elements overtaken or re-taken by nature.

Lontananze not only describes these “distant views” of nature but it also refers to the separation from, or diminution of, human affairs. There is almost always a distance from the narratives, the overt subjects of the paintings. There is no direct embroilment of the viewer nor an emotional affect from these events, yet Claude’s paintings are reputed for their emotional impact. This emotional value consists in the physical and conceptual diminution of the human within the context of the richness of an often-silent nature.

Nature is the pure eternal presence that the artist opposes to the mutable, the mortal, and the transient. But nature is not always unheeding in Claude. There are works that evince the “pathetic fallacy”: a seeming ascription to natural elements of human attributes, as some paintings share in the ructions of some of the narratives. However, this “persona” of nature—which could be termed “empathy” to a certain degree—remains the universal and indestructible context for finite actions by finite beings.

Hubert Damisch has written on the mechanics of the organization of the Claudean picture space and has noted that the artist placed his horizon and vanishing point two-fifths of the way up the picture plane. This, as Damisch says, is slightly lower than the canonical Albertian Renaissance recommendation of placing the vanishing point at the height of a fictive man with his feet on the baseline. In placing his own lower, Claude subverts the antique and Renaissance conception of “man as the measure of all things.” Claudean nature, instead, overwhelms the understanding of humanity and relegates it to the status of a mere factor of nature.

At root, his depiction of nature in itself constrains nature, and its sublimity and diminution of the works of humanity is his own oblique attempt at the mastery of the illusionistic representation of nature. In effect, he is re-casting humanity as central, though inflected and complicated by mortality.

Time and History

Marcel Roethlisberger has written of Claude’s manifold references to the passage of time. He notes that natural elements such as the sun, clouds, rippling water, the goings of peasants and animals, birds in flight, cascades of water, and the relative states of buildings all index what is seen as Claude’s overriding theme, the motives of which Roethlisberger says are “blended together ever so harmoniously.” Roethlisberger cites Claude’s incidental weather as connoting history, destiny, the seasons, and the centuries descending down to the artist’s time from the “gilded antiquity” that he paints.

Yet, it is in the combination of Claude’s incidental weather with antiquity that a mutability is established within antiquity. These scenes—often mythological—are not only a rendering of a relentless and irretrievable time, but perhaps also a visual comment on historiography, or the fitting of the past into a story, itself. Each repetition of these historical and/or mythological events re-makes the event by virtue of the subjective choices of the narrator/artist. These are depictions of the process of story-telling integral to history writing.

For example, Claude clothes his accounts—his figures and internal stories—in landscapes that are at once empathetic and relativistic of the perceived “momentousness” of human action. Sometimes, the trees sway under storm clouds, as in Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia, as if the war of the Latins and the newly arrived Trojan party will rack nature itself. But the profuse richness and growth of that nature is in contrast to human action. Nature is the inexorable, the eternal, and makes minnows of protagonists in Claude’s oeuvre.

Further, Roethlisberger says that the vast Claudean spaces are “inseparable from the expanses of time” and that this is the source of the deep emotional resonance with these paintings. Time’s emotional impact automatically dredges up the fact of mortality, of growth and decay, of the emergence and dissolution of cultures and empires. Most of all—given the many exquisite representations of countrysides and ports, the mythological antique “golden age” of peace and plenty is invoked with nostalgia. Claude’s images of landscapes in peace, or in turbulence that mirrors human affairs only serve to reinforce the nostalgia for that mythic and impossible era.

Claude’s images are just that, however: images. They appeal to and incite visual delectation and emotional investment through visuality. Although they almost always take subjects from mythological or biblical narratives, they are largely not to be “read” as narratives or mere visual renditions of a text. They can be read as such but, in exclusively so doing, the spectator loses the main thread of Claude’s painting. Epochal or foundational events are made minuscule in scale and importance. Claude does not so much paint these events as he paints the journey of time which both contextualizes and qualifies them—and thereby transcends them.

Claude obsessively studied his craft in the Roman Campagna—the site of many of these epochal events in the classical canon of myth. This landscape, an eternal presence from which the stories of Aeneas and Psyche had long since faded, would have been to Claude suggestive of the irrevocability of time, as well as a reminder of these stories.

It is also instructive to know that Claude mainly painted at dawn and dusk in the Campagna. Whether he grew obsessed with time because of this or his obsession with time prompted this is immaterial. The fact remains that, as Roethlisberger says, the dimension of time is more integral to his work than it is to any other artist of his generation or to any artist of any generation.

Roethlisberger writes that the artistic convention of the representation of time as a “static entity” is subverted by the sense of “flux” and passage in the works of Claude. In essence, he is right. Indeed, not only was time’s stasis seen in much art and thought before and after Claude’s era, but it was frequently personified, as, for example, an old man, as the dancing seasons, as destiny, etc. However, Claudean time is not typified by the notion of “flux.” The artist certainly painted time as passage, as an irretrievable flow—and often literalizing this characteristic in the painting of rivers, streams, and bridges. The implication of disorder intrinsic to the concept of flux is inimical to Claude’s portrayal of time. Even in Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia, where he depicts a violent act that will lead to war and storm clouds roiling in the sky prefiguring that war, Claude’s restricted color palette and narrow tonal range ensures the unity of his conception of time and nature. The character of the unified tonality puts the action into a context of being absorbed by the passage of time.

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648)

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba was commissioned by the general of the Papal army, Frédéric Maurice de la Tour d’Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon. Its biblical subject is the departure of the Queen of Sheba on a visit to King Solomon in order to trial his wisdom.

Our sighting of the queen in this port scene is distant. If the viewer is to be an implicit presence within this pictorial world, it makes two possibilities. One marks a social division—if we are to be included among the men loading luggage, or perhaps with the reclining man of the left foreground looking over with his hand raised to shield his eyes from the morning sun. On the other hand, and on the other side of the foreground, we could be associated with the two standing figures that are in discussion. These two men have a higher social status and are dressed accordingly. Their discussion is analogous to that of the spectators of the picture itself—except that the two men are presumably anticipating the future event of the meeting of the monarchs.

If the viewer is not implied to be present within the scene, his or her distance from the queen and her retinue shows the temporal passage from the mythic time of antiquity down to Claude’s time, and beyond to ours. Futurity is a theme that pervades the scene and is also exemplified by the rising sun. The sun is almost exactly central in the composition and, just as it illuminates this scene, Claude represents this biblical story through his mastery of tone and the compositional division of left from right.

The scene is both based on the mythic Christian past and the imagined; Sheba’s embarkation is not described in the relevant text, 1 Kings, chapter 10. Therefore, it is a fabrication upon a fabrication, but Claude actualizes it in a representation complicated by the sense of immateriality evidenced in the pervasive direct sunlight and the decomposition of the architecture of the left foreground. As is usual for Claude, the transience of human activity, of even its artifacts, is highlighted, especially by the dominance of the morning sky that is intensified by the low horizon line.

The image is replete with vistas that index time and humanity’s place in it. Passages, porticoes, and stairs all direct the attention to the immateriality of the works of humanity. The Corinthian columns of the left foreground are ruins, reclaimed by time and nature. There is a left-right dichotomy in the composition of the picture that again signals the mortality of human cultures. The dilapidated Corinthian column on the left marks the future of the pristinely kept royal palace from which the queen emerges. The upper reaches of the clouds have a formation that loosely resembles a natural pediment, linking the two sides of the composition, from the palace to the broken colonnade. This presages nature’s reclamation of all products of human imagination and craft.

The rippling of the waters of the port is a typical motif used by Claude to point to the quick succession of time’s moments. As Roethlisberger observes, Claude’s conception is very aptly summed up by the antique Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses: “Moments of time flee and follow, and are ever new.”

An alternative interpretation of Claude’s painting of Sheba setting out in the morning sun is that it refers to the prospective encounter with Solomon. The queen embarked to test and query the king’s reputed knowledge and justice. The book of Kings relates this encounter, and that the queen was so impressed that she presented Solomon with rare spices and 150 gold coins. In the context of the story, Claude’s rising sun can be seen as a premonition and a manifestation of Solomon’s enlightenment. However, when making this cautious relation, we must acknowledge that Claude was widely seen in his own time as “unlettered” and made the visual aspect of his art predominate. But that would not preclude the artist from at least hearing the story related to him, if he did not read it himself.

Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid (1664)

Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid is a painting from later in Claude’s long career and was commissioned by one of his most faithful patrons, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna. The subject is taken from the ancient poet Apuleius, who relates the love between Cupid, a god of love, and the nymph, Psyche. Scholars disagree as to whether Claude’s painting marks a time before they meet or after Cupid’s abandonment of Psyche. Apuleius writes that Psyche is wafted by Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, to a “deep valley, where she was laid in a soft grassy bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers.” After she rests, she sees “in the middest and very heart of the woods, well nigh at the fall of the river…a princely edifice.”

The pictorial evidence for Claude’s scene being after the abandonment seems compelling. The entire image—with its muted color, along with the expression and pose of Psyche—is clad in a melancholy that both looks back to her loss and forward to her death. Psyche has been rejected; Apuleius writes that she grieved the loss before drowning herself in the nearest running water.

The evening light is muted in Claude’s image. The setting sun is low, and the clouds are  darkening over the castle. All of this, along with Psyche’s pose, is a traditional artistic expression of melancholy—with her elbow on her knee and the back of her hand under her chin referring to closure and valediction. The valediction is two-fold and moves from past to future—a farewell to Cupid and the imminent farewell to life. In her depression, Psyche looks out to the waters that she will die in, and which are painted in dark hues of greens and blues that convey the coldness of death.

Psyche, from Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid, by Claude Lorrain, 1664. Source: The National Gallery

Psyche’s position is encircled by trees and bushes. Her fate seems inevitable to her. The last of the evening light ebbs from the grassy glade in front of her. As surely as the day closes, so will her eyes for the final time. Her eyes are wide, as if this is the moment of her resolution, and she is about to rise from her melancholic state to commit the ultimate act. The palace is also a fortress and symbolizes the intractable will of Cupid and the resultant finality of Psyche’s fate.

El Greco began as an icon painter in Crete and ended as Spain’s most singular voice. His elongated figures, fearless color, and mystical light were first mocked, then mined by modernists. These nine works mark the turns: Italy’s training, Toledo’s breakthroughs, and the late visionary canvases that changed how painters think about space and emotion. Together, they show why El Greco feels contemporary centuries later.

1. Saint Luke Painting the Virgin: Early Crete Years

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known simply as El Greco (Italian for the Greek), was born in Crete in 1541. During the thirteenth century, Crete—being part of the Byzantine Empire for centuries—was taken over by Venice. In terms of artistic life, Venetian influence brought opportunities for a more diverse education and more structured working conditions for artists in the form of painters’ guilds. As a child from a wealthy family, El Greco had the chance to receive a high-quality education based on Greek and Latin literature and the Byzantine tradition of painting.

El Greco started his artistic career as a painter of Orthodox Christian icons. It is unclear if he was Catholic or Orthodox himself, but the mixed influence of the two traditions was evident even in the minuscule amount of his surviving works from this period. In the late 1560s, El Greco decided to move to Venice.

• Why it matters: Reveals El Greco’s roots in Byzantine icon painting, which were later transformed by his time in Venice and Toledo
• Hallmarks: Gold ground, hieratic pose, icon layout carried into later altarpieces
• Where it is today: Versions and attributions vary across European collections; attribution remains debated

2. Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple: El Greco in Italy

Venice was the center of artistic activity of the time, specifically for Greek artists looking to secure more commissions and develop their skills. Despite unique opportunities, the city could not distinguish between its many artists. Along with the legendary El Greco, Venice had a dozen other men under the same pseudonym, some of them working in the workshops of major artists like Titian. This poses a significant challenge for El Greco experts attempting to understand his Italian period.

The painting Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple is the perfect example of El Greco absorbing the influence of great Italian masters. The painting itself hides a hint of that: four figures in the bottom right corner represent Titian, Michelangelo, Giulio Clovio (an illustrator and El Greco’s close friend), and Raphael. However, despite obvious influence, El Greco was ruthless when it came to the Old Masters, claiming they knew nothing about painting.

• Why it matters: El Greco’s Italian breakthrough, absorbing Titian and Michelangelo while asserting a personal voice
• Hallmarks: Muscular poses, Venetian color, quoting Old Masters in the foreground group
• Where it is today: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis

3. Assumption of the Virgin: Arrival in Spain

El Greco’s competitive personality and his performative disdain for the great Italian masters did not make him the most adored and desirable artist in Italy. Moreover, Italy was already crowded with talented artists, so El Greco decided to move to Spain. The legendary painting Assumption of the Virgin was El Greco’s first work in Spain and the one that brought him considerable success in the country. Apart from the Virgin, the top part of the painting featured the image of the Pieta with God the Father holding Jesus instead of his mother.

El Greco’s bold use of color and proportion led many art historians to believe the artist suffered from some kind of illness or condition. Some believed he had astigmatism, which made him see objects and figures unnaturally elongated, while others decided the artist was colorblind, thus explaining the unexpectedly bright and intense colors. However, all these assumptions are shattered by El Greco’s secular portraits of his commissioners. In these pieces, he abandoned his love for dramatically distorted limbs and faces in favor of a more conventional style and colors, fully expected in paintings like these.

• Why it matters: First major Spanish commission that establishes El Greco in Toledo
• Hallmarks: Vertical thrust, blazing reds and blues, two-tier heaven and earth composition
• Where it is today: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

4. Saint Peter & Saint Paul: Inside El Greco’s Studio

In Toledo, El Greco soon created his new studio. Finally, he became known for his unique style, so he was sought after instead of being seen as yet another Greek painter in Venice. In his workshop, he painted miniature copies of his existing works and offered them as a catalog to prospective commissioners.

While El Greco frequently worked with original ideas and compositions, his most stable source of income relied on copies of the works he had made before. He painted the same image of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at least three times, adjusting the color scheme to the client’s preferences. However, his most popular subject was Saint Francis, which existed in more than 120 variations, some of which were identical.

• Why it matters: A prime example of the studio’s repeatable “catalog” works tailored to patrons
• Hallmarks: Elongated saints, charged color, small variations across multiple versions
• Where it is today: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

5. The Disrobing of Christ: Toledo Cathedral Dispute

As a painter, El Greco struggled with following orders, despite being highly regarded in Toledo. He regularly ignored his clients’ wishes after coming up with something unexpected and exciting to paint. Not all commissioners agreed to pay for his experiments, so El Greco sued them. In trials like these, the final verdict depended not on a judge but on a group of other painters invited to assess the plaintiff’s work.

The Disrobing of Christ, painted for the Toledo Cathedral, was an example of El Greco’s unconventional approach. During the late Renaissance era, followed by emotionally intense Mannerism and Baroque, Spanish art had a distinctive focus on violence and blood, emphasizing the suffering of Jesus and Christian martyrs. The disrobing of Christ, therefore, was an unpopular subject since it only anticipated torture. But the main offense taken by the Spanish public was not in the absence of gore, but in the layout of figures. El Greco painted Christ lower than his tormentors, and such disrespect was the reason for the Toledo Cathedral to decrease the payment threefold.

• Why it matters: Tests Spanish taste with an audacious composition that lowers Christ among captors
• Hallmarks: Saturated crimson, compressed crowd, dramatic upward gaze
• Where it is today: Cathedral of Toledo, Sacristy, Toledo

6. The Penitent Mary Magdalene: Repetition and Icon Memory

Penitent Mary Magdalene was one of the most popular subjects for El Greco, repainted and sold many times. Despite the constant presence of female figures like Magdalene or the Virgin Mary in his religious works, El Greco’s secular paintings never included women. The only exception was the portrait of his lover Jeronima de Las Cuevas, whom he never married, despite having a son together; however, some experts question the portrait’s attribution to El Greco.

Surprisingly, for an artist of his age and time, El Greco had no interest in realistic body proportions and anatomy. Under the complex draperies of rich tones and textures, there were no actual bodies, no limbs, torsos, bones, or muscles, only shapeless clouds of smoke. He treated facial features with the same indifference. Despite their abundance in his compositions, El Greco made no attempts to make them recognizable. The same set of facial features repeated on and on in his religious paintings. Some art experts believe the reason was El Greco’s past occupation as an icon painter in Greece. In the Byzantine tradition, faces hardly mattered, since they were replaced with attributes and symbols.

• Why it matters: Best-selling subject that shows how icon habits meet Counter-Reformation emotion
• Hallmarks: Luminous skin, stormy background, drapery that abstracts the body beneath
• Where it is today: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

7. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz: Two-Zone Vision

One of the most famous works of El Greco, showcasing his set of skills, was The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. The count of Orgaz, or Don Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, was not El Greco’s contemporary but a town mayor who died more than two hundred years before the painting was made. The mayor introduced a yearly tax collected from Toledo residents to decorate the local church.

Two hundred years later, the tax became such a heavy burden for the locals that they refused to pay it. Thus, the parish priest asked El Greco to remind them of their duty by retelling the legend of the Count of Orgaz, who was so holy that Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine descended to assist with his burial. The painting consisted of two panels. The bottom one showed the actual burial, and the top showed the Count ascending into heaven. The complex composition demonstrated El Greco’s knowledge of Dutch group portraiture—the finest example of the style, allowing him to arrange dozens of people in a single composition.

• Why it matters: Signature masterpiece fusing a civic legend with a celestial vision
• Hallmarks: Split composition of earth and heaven, lifelike portraits, ecstatic light above
• Where it is today: Iglesia de Santo Tomé, Toledo

8. Laocoön: El Greco’s Only Myth

The Trojan priest Laocoön was the only one who warned the Trojans against accepting the gift of a giant horse and begged them to set it on fire. As a punishment, the same gods Laocoon worshipped sent giant serpents that devoured him and his sons. Laocoon’s agony was the only known mythical subject to be painted by El Greco, revealing an unexpected dimension. The Trojan Horse in the painting is not a wooden structure but a living horse with red hair.

A red horse, according to the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptical finale of the New Testament, was the sign of the Second Seal being open—one of the seven seals representing stages of the world’s end and the arrival of the Final Judgment. The figure riding the red horse is the second Horseman of the Apocalypse, representing war.  Thus, from a pagan priest, Laocoön turns into a Christ-like figure sacrificed by his own gods, left to watch the destruction of his world from afar.

• Why it matters: Turns a classical tale into an apocalyptic Christian meditation
• Hallmarks: Serpentine bodies, visionary sky, Revelation “red horse” symbolism
• Where it is today: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

9. The Opening of the Fifth Seal and the Legacy of El Greco

Despite the prominence of El Greco’s work during his lifetime, he was ridiculed and forgotten soon after his death. He did not leave behind a group of followers nor trained assistants, except for his son, who never achieved the same success.

The surprising recovery of El Greco’s legacy happened in the nineteenth century, when the views on painting started to change radically. Expressive qualities of art began to mean more than its consistency with the canons of what was acceptable. Paul Cezanne, among others, was enamored and obsessed with El Greco, borrowing color schemes from his works, while Picasso and Modigliani directly quoted him in their compositions. El Greco’s visible indifference towards the laws of physics, anatomy, and proportion could have made him a true star of the twentieth-century Expressionist movement, yet they turned him into an underappreciated master of his age.

• Why it matters: A touchstone for modernists who prized expression over strict narrative order
• Hallmarks: Fractured space, ecstatic gestures, blazing chroma
• Where it is today: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The signature design of Parisian subway entrances by Hector Guimard is among the most recognizable in the history of modern design. Still, the name of their creator sounds unjustly unfamiliar to the masses. Guimard was a revolutionary architect and the proponent of functional, affordable, yet aesthetically refined housing for the modern era. Yet, only a handful of his projects remain intact and appreciated. Read on to learn more about Hector Guimard and his works.

Hector Guimard: The Art Nouveau Legend

Born in Lyon in 1876, Hector Guimard had little to no artistic background, raised in the family of a doctor and a seamstress. Still, he showed an early inclination towards decorative art that allowed him to study it professionally despite limited financial means. By the age of 20, he became one of the best students in the Paris School of Decorative Arts and even managed to travel around Europe using scholarships and stipends. Eager to continue his studies, he enrolled at the most prestigious French art institution Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but never graduated, dropping out to work for a construction company.

During the first decade of his work, Guimard worked with variations of architectural style implemented during the Haussmann reconstruction of Paris. He mostly accepted commissions in the central areas of Paris: as a teenager, he ran away from home and settled in the house of his godmother, a wealthy landowner, who helped him obtain an education and make connections. As a result, Guimard became almost native to this area, clearly understanding its infrastructure, needs, and habits of the locals.

Still, his signature style did not form until his 1895 trip to Belgium. There, the Art Nouveau architecture was on the rise. The whiplash lines and ornaments of these unusual buildings mimicked nature and aimed to surpass it. They celebrated human creativity and skill, blending the influences of Rococo style, Egyptian art, and Neo-Gothic dramatism. Guimar believed that natural forms held the key to all architectural principles and human needs and only needed to be translated into the language of modern materials.

Castel Beranger, 1895-98

The thirty-six apartment block in central Paris became the turning point in Guimard’s career. The architect, who was only thirty years old at the time, found inspiration in Belgian Art Nouveau mansions and convinced his commissioner to experiment with form and decor. A seven-story building even had an installed lift, which was unusual at the time. Guimard mixed the radical excess of the Art Nouveau architecture with the aesthetics of Medieval castles, creating an abundantly decorated yet comforting space.

To place such a structure in the 16th arrondissement was ambitious on its own: this part of the city was known and still remains famous for its conservative and grandiose architecture. The playful Art Nouveau structure with curved stairs and fountains felt foreign and overdressed among its older neighbors. Guimard designed every element possible—from the facades to the doorknobs and furniture—to ensure a consistent and multi-dimensional experience from his building. He settled in one of the top floor apartments, with his close friend, the famous Pointillist painter Paul Signac, as his neighbor.

Paris Metro

The Beranger project brought fame and recognition to Guimard and helped him win the most iconic project closely associated with his oeuvre and legacy. After the Castel Beranger success, Guimard easily won the city council commission for the design of the underground train system. Apart from Guimard’s fame, the council chose him for political reasons. At the time of the Metro construction, the Paris city council was comprised of Socialists whose views the architect shared. Guimard aimed to democratize Art Nouveau, making the complex aesthetic transgress the boundaries of class and education, and the project of public transportation would be the perfect opportunity.

Guimard understood that the underground system would be used primarily by the working class, so he relied on affordable and recognizable industrial materials. He assembled each subway entrance from a set of mass-produced cast iron pieces, which varied in form and decoration. He developed a typeface for the signs and even installed signal lights that would alert passengers above about the train approaching underground. The abundant decoration, reminiscent of Eastern architecture and overgrown gardens, made Art Nouveau accessible and affordable for the wider public.

Still, despite the popularized aesthetic, Guimard’s colleagues and critics criticized the iconic entrances. Some believed that the curvy font was too hard to read, and others complained about the dark green color, which was indiscernible from its surroundings. Upper-class Parisians argued that the curvaceous arches ruined the pompous facades of elite neighborhoods.

Humbert de Romans Hall

The enormous and lavish music hall Salle Humbert de Romans, with eleven hundred seats, an organ, marble, mahogany, and orange glass decoration, was perhaps Guimard’s most ambitious and complex project. Yet, like most of his other work, it seemed to be doomed from the start. After years of negotiations, design, and construction, the hall stood still for only four years. In 1905, the owner demolished it to build a tennis court.

Initially, the idea of building a music hall came from a Dominican monk who ran a school in the same prestigious 16th arrondissement. The monk, known as Father Lavy, envisioned a concert facility to perform church music and chorals. The Paris Archdiocese refused to fund the project, so the money was raised from private sponsors from Father Lavy’s circles. To ensure the proper acoustics, Hector Guimard invited the famous composer Camille Saint-Saens as a consultant. Initially, the opening was planned for the 1900 Paris World Fair but was delayed until November 1901. Father Lavy did not manage to enjoy his creation, as only a month later he was banished to Constantinople, criticized for his enormous spending and vanity.

Post-World War I Housing: The Revolutionary Project by Hector Guimard

Still, the most underrated accomplishments of Hector Guimard were related not to the Art Nouveau period but to the years following the end of World War I. By that time, Art Nouveau fell out of fashion. The aesthetically overwhelming style had worn out its audience, and wartime scarcity brought an end to frivolous excesses. World War I left many regions of Europe, including Northern France, devastated. People from the war-affected areas desperately needed new housing and infrastructure.

Hector Guimard was among the ones seeking immediate solutions. To facilitate construction, he invented the concept of modular components: pre-designed elements of buildings that could be assembled in days, with no measurements or extra materials needed. Like a box of Lego bricks, Guimard’s elements could form any type, size, or configuration depending on his client’s requirements. He was enthusiastic about the possibilities of such a method, but for years, he remained the only one who had used it.

After the war, Guimard’s signature aesthetic became more somber and minimalist, focusing on function before form. He was truly the first architect to offer concrete as a cheap and functional material, years before Le Corbusier and the Brutalists. His keen attention to detail demonstrated in the complex Art Nouveau designs once again manifested itself, this time in meticulously thought-through elements of construction and daily use that would make his projects not only easy to build but comfortable to inhabit. Although Guimard designed affordable and simple housing, he never thought of making them identical. Every house had distinctive, customizable elements to create a diverse and engaging yet stylistically matching cityscape for its inhabitants. Unfortunately, Guimard’s housing projects remained mostly theoretical, deemed too innovative and unusual.

Guimard’s Final Years in New York

In 1909, Guimard married an American painter, Adeline Oppenheim, who came to Paris to study art. Her work was relatively well-received and mentioned by her contemporaries in several books on outstanding woman painters. The couple struggled with money as Guimard was replaced by other architects who were younger and more fashionable. Mostly, their financial support came from Oppenheim’s father, a New York banker. In the early 1930s, the couple witnessed the rising anti-semitic hostilities and the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany.

Due to Guimard’s political affiliation and Oppenheim’s Jewish origins, the couple decided to move to the USA in 1938. Only four years later, Guimard died there in complete obscurity. Following his death, Adeline Guimard-Oppenheim transported his entire archive, including designs, blueprints, drawings, and notes, to New York. Her dedication helped preserve Guimard’s body of work through the years of his European fall from grace and the dramatic events of World War II.

Hector Guimard’s Legacy Demolished

Still, the architectural legacy of Hector Guimard mostly remained in the form of his blueprints and plans. After the war, Adeline attempted to open a Guimard museum in one of his buildings, but the authorities refused the idea. By the 1960s, most of his iconic buildings were either destroyed or completely reshaped. The original metro entrances designed by Guimard have mostly been demolished or given away to other cities to strengthen cultural ties. Today, only one original entrance remains completely intact, 88 are partially preserved, and others are installed in Canada, Portugal, Russia, and the USA.

The architect’s widow donated most of his archives to several US museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. These institutions helped re-establish Guimard’s reputation in the 1970s after a series of Art Nouveau exhibitions attracted the attention of European officials. Today, the few remaining buildings are protected by the French state as outstanding cultural heritage.

One of the greatest American artists, James McNeill Whistler, was a controversial figure. His eccentric personality and penchant for making up stories sometimes made it difficult for viewers and patrons to appreciate the intellectual effort and mastery of his works. His preoccupation with tone and texture envisioned the development of abstract art. Read on to learn about the five most important works by James McNeil Whistler.

1. The Early Self-Portrait of James McNeill Whistler

James McNeill Whistler was notorious for his experimental art, which defied all possible conventions of his time. Yet. he was eccentric enough even outside of his creative experiments. Whistler compensated for his small figure by wearing patent leather heels and outrageously colored shirts. He constructed elaborate lies about his origins and childhood, never consistent or making any sense. While researching Whistler’s biography, historians had to trust only documented sources, ignoring pretty much everything that the artist ever said about himself. His eccentricity was his way of self-promotion and a protective screen behind which he hid a vulnerable and sensitive personality.

In his work, he mixed and matched influences from the Old Master painting, Japanese art, the Aesthetic Movement, and Ancient Greek Art. This particular self-portrait was a clear homage to the works of Rembrandt van Rijn, the Dutch master who documented his entire creative life in dozens of reflections. This was Whistler’s early work, most likely inspired by the Rembrandt self-portrait he saw in the Louvre while studying. Historically, the act of painting one’s own image served as something infinitely more valuable and meaningful than any other work. A self-portrait is an act of self-recognition, the proclamation of oneself both worthy of depiction and capable of depicting. Whistler’s bold homage to Rembrandt demonstrated his high artistic ambition and a sure lack of doubt in his abilities.

2. Symphony in White №1 (The White Girl)

Today, James McNeil Whistler is considered to be one of the most influential American and British artists of his time. However, during his lifetime, his works were frequently dismissed and ignored. One of Whistler’s early works, The White Girl, later renamed Symphony in White, was rejected by both British and French salons. As a result, Whistler exhibited it at the famous 1863 Salon des Refusés, the group show that united modern artists rejected by the artistic establishment. Along with Whistler’s painting, the exhibition featured the legendary Luncheon on the Grass by Edouard Manet and the works by Gustave Courbet and Camille Pissarro.

The model Whistler painted in his Symphony in White was his then-partner and manager, Joanna Hiffernan. She was a young Irish woman who was strikingly beautiful and extremely intelligent despite her limited education. Hiffernan spent six years with Whistler and remained on good terms with him even after their breakup. Apart from Whistler, she modeled for Gustave Courbet. It was also rumored that she painted on her own.

Despite the personal connection with the model, The Symphony in White showcased Whistler’s minimal interest in people as subjects of his paintings. The contrast of a white lily, the symbol of innocence usually used in the paintings of the Virgin Mary, and the wolfskin rug preoccupied him much more, hinting at the deceptive nature of feminine gentleness. Whistler painstakingly chose the tones and decorations for the work, rearranging his entire studio to create a fitting backdrop.

3. The Arrangement in Grey and Black #1 (Whistler’s Mother)

Anna McNeil Whistler raised five children, including the future artist, on her own after her husband passed away from cholera. Staunchly religious, she forbade all toys and books apart from the Bible. She moved her family to England after the start of the American Civil War and later became James Whistler’s personal manager and assistant despite being rather shocked by his lifestyle and career choices. Anna Whistler remains a controversial figure when we look at the historical context: she came from a family of plantation owners and slave traders and supported the Confederate Army during the war.

Whistler’s most famous painting emerged almost accidentally after a model who previously worked with the artist got too bored of standing still for hours and skipped the session. Whistler asked his mother to model for him instead, but, being in her late sixties, Anna could not stand for too long. Seated next to a patterned curtain and a grey wall, the artist’s mother was wearing her mourning dress that she vowed to wear for the rest of her life after her husband’s death that happened decades before. For Whistler, the painting was more of an exercise in color arrangement than a sentimental gesture. Still, over the years, the image of the artist’s mother has become the symbol of American motherhood, used in popular culture, social campaigns, and wartime propaganda.

4. Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket)

Even though Whistler insisted on always taking inspiration from natural forms, some of his works approached abstraction dangerously close. Moreover, his preoccupations with texture and color to the detriment of actual correspondence with reality, as well as his obsession with music, brought him closer to the artistic philosophies of artists like Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky. His painting titles usually employed terms and notions borrowed from music to highlight the similarities between tonal variations of sound and color.

One of his most famous Nocturnes notoriously became the subject of a court case. Art critic John Ruskin compared Whistler’s image of fireworks erupting over a dark river with “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler, then almost destitute, initiated a libel trial, hoping to promote his art and receive compensation from the critic. However, the artist’s conceptual vision was not well-received by the jury. Ruskin’s attorneys questioned whether Whistler even had the right to demand payment for a seemingly simple piece of artistic work. Whistler retorted that he offered not only the canvas itself but also years of practice, thought, and experience that led him to discover and develop such a manner of painting.

Whistler won the case but did not receive compensation and even had to pay half of the legal costs, which ultimately bankrupted him. John Ruskin had a long history of personal hatred towards Whistler and his work. His emotions were so intense that some art historians and medical professionals suggested that Ruskin suffered from a medical condition that was triggered by Whistler’s arrangements of color and tone.

5. The Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler

One of the most famous and acclaimed works by James McNeill Whistler, his unique and precious interior design project called The Peacock Room was the subject of great controversy and social scandal, ruining the artist’s relationship with one of his main patrons for good. The British magnate Frederick Leyland, the famous patron of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Whistler himself, asked the artist to finish the renovation of his dining room after the leading architect fell ill. Apart from the actual dining purposes, the room had to display Leyland’s collection of Chinese porcelain. Leyland expected Whistler to finish the project according to the plan, yet he chose to resort to ambitious creative experiments with little regard for the work of his predecessor.

Whistler painted over the leather-covered walls, gilded the already assembled shelves, and completely repaired the ceiling. The artist worked without any plan or preconceived design, simply repainting and reshaping one element after another, aligning all fragments into the experimental harmony of blue and gold. In the end, the room transformed into something entirely different. Despite Leyland’s initial favoritism towards Whistler, he was outraged by his impulsive arrogance and refused to cover the artist’s expenses.

Bitter, Whistler left one more remark: a mural of the two fighting peacocks, a commentary on his relationship with his ex-patron. Whistler claimed that he made Leyland famous by creating The Peacock Room and, for years, kept drawing petty caricatures of the magnate in peacock feathers. Thomas Jekyll, the original architect of the room, also suffered because of Whistler. Upon seeing his room completely redone, he suffered a mental breakdown and never fully recovered. The unfortunate room, widely considered a masterpiece despite the dramatic events around it, was soon disassembled and sold to an American art collector called Charles Lang Freer. Today, visitors can see it in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Ansel Adams is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, renowned for capturing the grandeur of Yosemite, the Sierra Nevada, and the American West. Beyond landscapes, his portraits and urban scenes reveal a masterful eye for light, composition, and narrative.

These five iconic photographs showcase Adams’s ability to transform nature, architecture, and human moments into breathtaking art, offering a window into the vision that shaped modern photography.

1. Yosemite’s Dramatic Clouds: Ansel Adams in the High Sierra

At fourteen, Ansel Adams visited Yosemite Valley for the first time, having only seen it in a book months earlier. He received his first camera there and took some of his earliest photographs. Already eager for hands-on exploration, Adams had left school at twelve, supplementing his education with private tutoring and trips to the mountains.

He returned repeatedly, climbing to new heights and capturing different perspectives of the High Sierra. This photograph shows a smoky quality, with clouds filling the upper third of the frame, lending a sense of expansiveness. As the forest recedes, the mountains open to the viewer, revealing the dramatic light and shadow characteristic of Adams’s early work.

His treatment of tonal saturation and compositional dynamics reflects admiration for early landscape painters such as Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran. The vitality and truth in his images convey the experience of standing atop the American West’s highest peaks. These early Yosemite photographs established a visual language Adams would carry throughout his career: one that combines technical mastery with a deep reverence for the natural world.

2. San Francisco Bay Through Adams’s Lens

Adams’s photographs of San Francisco Bay reveal his fascination with the interplay of nature and urban life. In this image, clouds sweep across the sky while mountains recede into the horizon, creating the sensation of floating above the landscape. The photograph’s atmospheric perspective emphasizes scale, making the viewer feel small relative to the vast natural world.

Adams often photographed the Bay from varying altitudes and viewpoints to explore different light and composition. His 1953 return, after the construction of the Bay Bridge, captures a landscape reshaped by human intervention, reflecting his concern for environmental preservation.

Through these urban landscapes, Adams maintained the tension between human development and wilderness, balancing grandeur with intimacy. His attention to tonal gradation and compositional structure transforms ordinary scenes into profound meditations on scale, light, and the relationship between humanity and the natural environment. These works bridge his city and wilderness photography, revealing an artist equally attuned to industrial and untouched landscapes.

3. City Portraits: Stieglitz, O’Keeffe, and Adams

While Adams is best known for landscapes, his city portraits reveal his skill in capturing intimacy and personality. In this image, Alfred Stieglitz gazes away from the camera, with a painting by his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, behind him. The light falls across his face, creating chiaroscuro and emphasizing depth and nuance.

Some scholars interpret this as a portrait of the couple, with the painting serving as an index for O’Keeffe. Adams’s urban photography reflects his interest in relationships, artistic dialogue, and human presence, providing a personal counterpoint to the vast, impersonal landscapes he often captured.

Adams’s portraits demonstrate his ability to merge technical mastery with narrative subtlety. Composition, light, and shadow are carefully orchestrated to convey emotion and context. Even in urban settings, his photographs retain a painterly quality, demonstrating that human moments can be as compelling and dynamic as the natural scenes for which he is best known.

4. Taos, New Mexico: Adams and the Desert Landscapes

Ansel Adams’s trips to Taos reflect his regionalist approach, emphasizing a connection to nature and the people who inhabit it. During his stays, he visited Georgia O’Keeffe, who may have shared the landscapes that inspired her work. Simultaneously, Adams collaborated indirectly with Mary Austin on a book about Taos, pairing photographs with text to present the region’s environment and Indigenous architectural traditions.

Although no people appear in this composition, Adams’s photographs of adobe-style homes demonstrate how locals adapted earth-based materials to create sustainable, harmonious dwellings. These works celebrate the balance between human life and nature.

Adams was a passionate advocate for preserving the natural world. He wrote about the toll of industrial technology: “Man lived close to nature—a raw and uncompromising nature—and he was a part of the great pageant of sun, storm, and disaster. By the turn of the century…men turned upon the land and its resources with blind disregard for the logic of ordered use, or for the obligations of an ordered future.” His Taos images embody this philosophy, capturing beauty as a means to inspire protection and reverence for the land.

5. Moments in the Gallery by Ansel Adams

Adams’s work in galleries and urban interiors demonstrates his interest in human interaction and compositional symmetry. In this photograph, men converse while standing before a painting, their postures echoing the figures in the artwork behind them. This mirroring creates harmony and rhythm, animating the scene and drawing the viewer into the interaction.

Even in such intimate settings, Adams’s mastery of light, contrast, and depth transforms a simple moment into a visual narrative. His keen eye captures both gesture and atmosphere, highlighting subtleties of human behavior and engagement with art.

These gallery photographs complement his landscapes, showing that Adams’s artistry extended beyond mountains and rivers. By framing ordinary encounters with the same care he gave to Yosemite or Taos, he demonstrates that life can be observed and rendered as a work of art.

Oscar Claude Monet is a renowned Impressionist painter known for works such as Water Lilies, Haystacks, and Rouen Cathedral, and he produced more than 2,000 paintings. The 19th-century French artist founded the Impressionist movement, named for one of his works. He painted the people and landscapes around him, sharing his impression of the familiar. He also developed a serial approach to his subjects, switching canvases as the light or his interest shifted. This article looks at ten Claude Monet paintings that every art lover should know.

1. Impression, Sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet

One cannot discuss Claude Monet’s art without looking at Impression, Sunrise, one of his most notable pieces. Not only was it the centerpiece of Impressionism in terms of technique, but it also served as inspiration for the term Impressionism itself. It was this painting’s title that prompted Louis Leroy, an art critic, to use the word Impressionists when referring to the artists who participated in the 1874 exhibition, in which Monet and other artists rejected from Royal Academy exhibitions displayed their work independently. Although Leroy did not use the term positively, the painters and the audience adopted it to describe the style. Ultimately, Impression, Sunrise became the starting point of Impressionism.

So, what is it that makes this painting such a pivotal piece in the development of this movement? First, it was executed en plein air (outdoors), a technique preferred by the Impressionists. Secondly, the paint was applied in loose brushstrokes, which captured the impression of a fleeting moment. The work is painted in an almost abstract way, which made it look unfinished at the time.

• Why it matters: The canvas that named and defined the Impressionist movement: light, speed, and atmosphere over finish.
• Look closer: Hazy harbor, flat orange sun cutting through blue-gray mist; brisk strokes that feel “unfinished” by design.

2. Woman With a Parasol (1875)

Monet’s painting Woman with a Parasol captures Camille and Jean Monet, his wife and son, going for a walk. Like other artworks signed by the artist, Woman with a Parasol is an excellent embodiment of the way Impressionists experimented with light, shade, and color. In addition, this particular painting depicts the playful nature of the wind, which can be noticed in the waving grass and Camille’s dress. The work has a strong upward perspective, with the sky and the clouds making up most of the background. The bright and vivid colors are applied in spontaneous, animated brushstrokes, thus providing the painting with a casual touch.

• Why it matters: Turns a family scene into a study of wind and daylight; portraiture as atmosphere.
• Look closer: Upward viewpoint; fluttering white dress and green parasol; broken color in grass and clouds.

3. The Magpie (1868-1869)

Out of roughly 140 snowscapes signed by Monet, The Magpie is probably the most famous. It is also the largest snowscape he ever painted. At the time, Monet was in Normandy, near Étretat, where Louis Joachim Gaudibert, his patron, helped him find a house where he could raise Jean, his newborn son.

The Magpie demonstrates Monet’s masterful recreation of sunlight and shadows. We see a magpie perched on a gate with its back to the sun, which shines upon the snow. Traditionally, shadows are painted using black colors. Here, however, one can observe a slightly colored, bluish shadow on the snow. Monet relied on the effect produced by the blue-yellow complementary colors, which, combined with short brushstrokes, created an effect of bluish-violet shadows. This method would later become a typical Impressionist way of portraying the changing nature of light.

• Why it matters: Rewrites winter color: blue-violet shadows in snow replace academic black.
• Look closer: Luminous snow fields; tiny magpie anchoring a near-monochrome composition.

4. The Woman in the Green Dress (1866)

The Woman in the Green Dress is also known as simply Camille. It was executed in 1866, and it shows Monet’s future wife wearing a long, green, black-striped dress and a furry, black jacket. She is also shown wearing yellow leather gloves with her hair tied in a bun.

Although it seems like a typical portrait at first, one can notice that just like in Woman with a Parasol, Monet tried to depict a fleeting, casual moment. First of all, we cannot see the dress fully, as it’s cut on the left edge, thus creating the impression of movement. The folds of the dress suggest liveliness as well. Camille has her head slightly turned backward and looks downward as if she were contemplating something. Unlike his later works associated with Impressionism, The Woman in the Green Dress was well received by the public and the critics.

• Why it matters: Early success that tests modern cropping and movement before Monet’s full Impressionist turn.
• Look closer: Cropped hem implying motion; satin folds modeled with energetic, directional strokes.

5. Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867)

Garden at Sainte-Adresse was finished in 1867 and exhibited at the 4th Impressionist Exhibition in 1879. It shows the garden in Sainte-Adresse overlooking the English Channel with the Honfleur commune on the horizon. Once again, the viewers can notice the creative play of light and shadows. Interestingly, the figures are depicted quite realistically and in detail, which isn’t typical of his later works. Nonetheless, we can still see the vibrant colors of the flowers applied in short brushstrokes.

This painting often comes up when we think of the influence of Japanese wood prints on Impressionism. Pierre-Auguste Renoir actually called this particular artwork “the Japanese Painting.” It is thought to have been inspired by the Japanese print called Turban-shell Hall of the Five-Hundred Rakan Temple by Hokusai. The influence can be seen in three horizontal planes of the composition, which appear to be parallel rather than depth-induced.

• Why it matters: Bridges detailed figuration with Japonisme’s flat bands—key to Monet’s evolving composition.
• Look closer: Terrace/sea/sky as three parallel planes; flags and blossoms as bright color notes.

6. La Japonaise (1876)

La Japonaise shows a European woman (Monet’s wife, Camille) wearing a red Japanese kimono. She holds a hand fan and stands on a tatami mat in front of a wall covered in Japanese fans. Camille has her head turned toward the viewer, an element inspired by Japanese dance. But hers is not the only face we see in this painting, since the red kimono contains the face of a samurai.

After his son was born, Claude and Camille were in great financial trouble, so executing and selling a painting with Japanese elements seemed like an excellent idea, considering the popularity of Japonisme in France at the time. However, what began as a simple way of earning some money turned into a superb experience for the artist. Shortly after he began working on the painting, Monet realized what a pleasure it was to paint detailed kimonos.

After La Japonaise was put on display at the 1876 Impressionist Exhibition, many critics pointed to its erotic symbolism. More precisely, they discussed the placement of the samurai’s head, as well as the woman’s flirty facial expression. Apparently, Monet was embarrassed by the effect the painting had on the audience. He allegedly withdrew the painting from the exhibition himself and told people that it had been sold to an anonymous buyer.

• Why it matters: A frank embrace of Japonisme and surface pattern that expands Monet’s palette and staging.
• Look closer: Ornate kimono motifs; wall of fans flattened into a decorative backdrop.

7. The Studio Boat (1876)

Did you know that Monet bought a boat (that soon became his studio) so that he could experience the en plein air painting technique at its fullest? In The Studio Boat, Monet portrays himself working in his remote working place—the boat floating on the Seine. Although Monet made several other paintings featuring his studio boat, this one has been of particular interest to critics. It pointed indirectly to the fact that Monet was slowly alienating himself from portraying urban industrial scenes.

• Why it matters: Monet builds mobility into his method, making process and subject inseparable.
• Look closer: Portable easel and cabin on water; reeds and reflections turning the Seine into a moving studio.

8. The Artist’s Garden at Giverny (1900)

Claude Monet was very passionate about gardening, and his estate in Giverny became his heaven in this regard. He spent years and years caring for his garden and, at the same time, depicting it on hundreds of canvases. Therefore, we cannot neglect this iconic painting, which testifies to the love Monet devoted to cultivating his Giverny garden. In fact, the garden still exists, and it welcomes thousands of visitors every year.

Monet was 60 years old when he painted The Artist’s Garden at Giverny. The painting depicts diagonal rows of brightly colored irises, and you can almost see the flowers moving in the wind. He executed it the same year he started working on his most famous series, Water Lilies.

• Why it matters: Giverny becomes Monet’s lifelong laboratory; gardening feeds the painting, and vice versa.
• Look closer: Diagonal iris rows; close cropping that turns beds into bands of color and light.

9. Water Lilies (c. 1916)

Claude Monet began creating various images of a water lily pond in 1899. By this time, he was already famous for his series of paintings, including Haystacks and Rouen Cathedral, but the artist dedicated 20 years of his life to capturing the water lily pond, producing almost 300 paintings of the scene, each an individual impression.

The Water Lilies series is usually divided into two compositional groups: one that depicts the pond and vegetation, and the other that portrays the water surface, the flowers, and reflections. At first, the paintings were executed on smaller canvases. In 1914, however, everything changed when Monet’s son, Jean, died. This seemed to give the artist the impetus to take on larger canvases. The biggest painting from the series, now exhibited at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Water Lilies, The Two Willows, measures 55 by 6.5 feet.

• Why it matters: Monumental, horizonless panels that push toward abstraction and pure perception.
• Look closer: Floating pads and blossoms interlaced with sky reflections; no horizon to anchor the eye.

10. Rough Weather at Étretat by Claude Monet (1883)

Although not as famous as his Water Lilies, Monet was particularly interested in painting en plein air seascapes. Art specialists found a grain of sand embedded in the surface of Rough Weather at Étretat, which is direct proof that at least that particular paint was applied on the shore. Here, Monet emphasized the magnificent strength of nature. He applied colors in loose brushstrokes, outlining a fleeting moment when big waves strike.

• Why it matters: Captures nature’s force in situ, an on-the-spot seascape that trades polish for immediacy.
• Look closer: Scumbled strokes for spray and surf; cliff forms as anchors amid crashing waves.

In the music world, Richard Wagner’s influence was vast, stretching beyond the confines of the opera houses. He innovated the leitmotif, a repeated musical theme associated with a character or idea, which is used in film and television music today. His moves toward atonality influenced the modernist composers of the early 20th century. His technique of unending melody reconfigured how composers might think about structure and form. But Wagner also caught the attention of artists in other media, possibly more than any composer before or since. How did Wagnerism manifest in the other art forms?

Richard Wagner in the Visual Arts

From The Flying Dutchman to Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal, Wagner’s music dramas had a highly visual element. The term ‘music drama’ is often used instead of ‘opera’ for Wagner’s works precisely because they combine visual and literary elements with music. Wagner also had firm ideas about the stage design and choreography of his productions. It was only natural that these visual spectacles would influence artists working in visual media, such as painters, illustrators, sculptors, and designers.

One early Wagner-infused art movement was Impressionism. The German composer’s music was not frequently performed in France in the 1870s, not least after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71 soured relations and made German music unpopular. Nevertheless, some artists became card-carrying Wagnerites in these years. Espousing Wagner’s cause became a way for artists to signal their transgressive or anti-establishment values.

Claude Monet, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir all moved in Wagnerian circles, with Renoir painting a portrait of the composer in 1882. Fantin-Latour completed works depicting scenes from Wagner’s dramas, such as Les Filles du Rhin and Scène finale de la Walkyrie. Similarly, Paul Cézanne initially gave his Young Girl at the Piano (1868-69) the title Overture to “Tannhauser,” inspired by the growing popularity of the composer’s music.

Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were both inspired by the rich harmonies in Wagner’s music, which seemed to open up new worlds and pave the way for new imaginings of color in painting. Gauguin was particularly attracted by Wagner’s anti-commercialism. The painter, who would eventually abandon Western civilization for what he considered a purer existence in Tahiti, agreed with Wagner that art had been corrupted by modern life.

In Britain, the Pre-Raphaelite artists often shared subjects with Wagner, both taking an interest in the medieval and Arthurian legends. Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s oeuvre is full of femmes fatales like those Wagner put on stage—Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle and Kundry in Parsifal. John Everett Millais hosted a dinner in Wagner’s honor during the 1877 Wagner Festival in London (although the composer did not attend).

His wife, Cosima, sat for a portrait by Edward Burne-Jones, whose paintings were full of Wagnerian subjects: from Laus Veneris, which imagines the Venusberg as seen in Tannhäuser, to the Holy Grail tapestries he designed along with William Morris. Cosima Wagner had also hoped to meet Morris because of the extensive overlap between Morris and Wagner’s work. In his poetry, translations, illustrations, and designs, Morris took an extensive interest in Arthuriana and the Old Norse legends that had inspired the Ring.

Finally, the artist whose name was most persistently paired with Wagner’s in late-19th-century Britain was Aubrey Beardsley, the illustrator and writer. Beardsley’s drawing The Wagnerites (1894) offers a view of a typical fin-de-siècle Wagner audience. He also created drawings of Wagner characters such as Siegfried, Tristan and Isolde, Alberich, and the Rhinemaidens. His only novel, an unfinished erotic farce originally titled The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser, was a smutty send-up of the Wagnerian hero’s adventures in the decadent land of Venus.

Wagnerian Poetry

Much of Wagner’s influence on Impressionism in late-19th-century France came via writing about the composer rather than a great familiarity with his music. One of his first French acolytes was the poet Charles Baudelaire, whose attendance at a performance of Tannhäuser in 1861 resulted in a flurry of overwhelmed, overwrought writings—an article praising Wagner and an effusive letter sent to the composer himself.

Baudelaire declared himself utterly affected by the music, experiencing sensations unlike any he had ever known before, and (like Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s novel) disturbed yet intrigued to recognize something of himself in the music drama.

For Baudelaire, Wagner’s works were a perfect mirror of his own interest in synesthesia (uniting all the senses in one artistic experience) and the meeting of the sacred and profane. Other French poets would venerate Wagner for the same reasons: Symbolist and Parnassian poets who sought to return versification to its ancient association with music, such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Théophile Gautier, Catulle Mendès, and Paul Verlaine.

By 1885, French literature’s Wagner mania was consolidated in the Revue wagnérienne. This Paris-based periodical initially mirrored the Bayreuther Blätter, a German periodical publishing excerpts of Wagner’s writing, analyses of his dramas, and other related pieces. The Revue‘s co-founder, Éduoard Dujardin, was a devoted Wagnerite who later wrote a novel, Les Lauriers sont coupés (1887). This novel showed the influence of Wagner’s unending melody on literature. Indeed, Dujardin aimed to convey the inner workings of a character’s mind in long, winding sentences, prefiguring the stream-of-consciousness technique used by several 20th-century authors.

As for poetry written in English, Algernon Charles Swinburne—like Edward Burne-Jones—was influenced by Wagnerian subjects, creating his own Laus Veneris, a poem that revels in the pleasures and pains Tannhäuser experiences at the Venusberg. As one of Baudelaire’s most prominent champions in the Anglophone world, Swinburne was inevitably drawn to Wagner and attracted just as much censure as the French poet and the German composer.

Another controversial poet conceived of his endeavors as essentially Wagnerian. Walt Whitman‘s Leaves of Grass attracted criticism for its blend of high-flown ideas (the ego of the poet as a universe in itself), ordinary language, and freedom from rhyme or meter. Like the composer, he fixed his eyes on the future, completely re-envisioning the boundaries of the form he worked in and its capacities to encompass such weighty topics as love, death, and the self.

Wagnerian Fiction

Given the sprawling duration of many of Wagner’s music dramas, it is perhaps unsurprising that they influenced prose fiction with novels similarly expanding to hitherto unheard-of lengths in the late 19th century.

Émile Zola, along with his friend Paul Cézanne, was a member of a local Wagner Society in his youth. His Rougon-Macquart novels, a series numbering 20 in total, might be compared to Wagner’s Ring cycle. Indeed, both artists attempted to evoke an entire world in all its historical proportions.

By the beginning of the following century, Marcel Proust had embarked on his own Wagnerian venture with seven novels collectively titled In Search of Lost Time. Proust went even further in his imitation of the composer, weaving leitmotifs throughout his writing and aiming to do with his sentences what Wagner had done with his musical phrases.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Decadent novelists were – like Charles Baudelaire – captivated by Wagner’s hints of the mythic, esoteric, and occult. They were particularly influenced by the Bühnenweihfestspiel (sacred festival play) Parsifal, in which the Grail Knights perform a ceremony resembling the Christian Eucharist. On the other hand, the play’s themes of redemption, sacrifice, death, and rebirth resonated with Buddhist thought.

The work’s dark intimations of Christianity, tinted with paganism and Eastern influences, appealed to Joris-Karl Huysmans, who wrote about Satanism in novels like Là-bas (1891) and La cathédrale (1898). However, he is best remembered for À rebours (1884), “Against Nature,” dubbed the “breviary of decadence.” À rebours was famously the novel that corrupts Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel (although it is not explicitly named). The Picture of Dorian Gray similarly pays tribute to Wagner as something of a high priest of decadence.

Wagner did not style himself as a high priest of decadence, but one of his more eccentric fans did: Sâr Joséphin Péladan (‘Sâr’ meaning ‘king’ in Akkadian, an ancient Semitic language). Péladan founded the Order of the Catholic Rose et Croix, a movement derived from Rosicrucianism and characterized by a mixture of Christian mysticism, alchemy, and magic.

Péladan also wrote art criticism and novels, notably a 21-volume cycle called La Décadence latine. References to Wagner are dotted throughout the novels, but the most Wagnerian was The Victory of the Husband. In the story, a pair of lovers name themselves Siegmund and Sieglinde (after the incestuous siblings in the Ring cycle) and travel to Bayreuth, the home of Wagner’s music, where they make love during a performance of Tristan and Isolde.

Thomas Mann, Wagner’s compatriot, also wrote about characters being aroused by Tristan, notably in the 1903 novella of the same name. The figure of Wagner looms over Mann’s work, from the increasingly diabolical composer in Doctor Faustus (1947), who charts new territories in chromaticism, to the composer Gustav Aschenbach in Death in Venice (1912)—the city, incidentally, where Wagner died.

Before Death in Venice, Vernon Lee wrote the short story A Wicked Voice 1890, just a few years after Wagner’s own death in Venice. Lee’s story is about a Wagner-esque composer transfixed by hallucinations of a long-dead castrato’s voice and goes mad. James Huneker, the American writer and music critic, wrote several short stories featuring Wagner’s music as shorthand for decadence, madness, and eroticism. Like Péladan and Mann, the Irish novelist George Moore included Tristan and Isolde as a pivotal spur to eroticism in his novel about an opera singer, Evelyn Innes (1898).

Richard Wagner in the Theater

As the example of George Moore suggests, Wagner’s influence in late-19th-century literary Ireland was strong in the theater as well as in prose and poetry. W.B. Yeats, the foremost writer to emerge from this milieu, was a keen spectator of Wagner’s dramas (as was a young James Joyce). Yeats, along with Moore and Edward Martyn, founded the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899, a venture inspired by the rising interest in Irish nationalism and the resurgence of Celtic culture at the time.

For Yeats, Wagner’s work was a blueprint. It was strongly aligned with German nationalism, but it also contained folkloric touches and was intertwined with Irish legend in Tristan and Isolde (whose heroine hailed from Ireland). The plays Yeats wrote and presented with the Irish Literary Theatre were steeped in Wagner, transplanting his self-sacrificing heroines, doomed lovers, and Shadowy Waters (the title of one play) to an Irish context.

Other burgeoning theatrical movements took their cue from Wagner at the end of the 19th century. In Belgium, Maurice Maeterlinck innovated a Symbolist theatrical style that, similar to Symbolist poetry, took inspiration from the correspondence of words, music, and mysticism in Wagner’s works. His 1892 play Pelléas et Mélisande was a tale of forbidden, doomed love, like Tristan and Isolde. It was later set to music by a composer who had himself been, if briefly, under the spell of Tristan: Claude Debussy.

English theater’s most committed Wagnerite was another Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who saw the music dramas as embodiments of his socialist ideals. Most notably, the Ring cycle struck Shaw as an indictment of capitalist greed and a valorization of the ordinary man as a hero. Shaw channeled these ideas into his own plays. However, his most overt statement of Wagner’s influence is the critical work The Perfect Wagnerite (1898), which offers a reading of the Ring as a critique of the misuse of power.

Wagner’s influence on late-19th and early-20th-century theater extended to the buildings themselves. His creation of the Festspielhaus, or festival theater, at Bayreuth, had been a monumental feat of architecture in itself. Taking inspiration from Greek amphitheaters, the theater at Bayreuth was constructed differently from any other theater in the 19th century, with all seating angled towards the vast stage in a fan shape (rather than with theater boxes facing each other, as in the conventional less egalitarian, horseshoe shape). Wagner meticulously constructed the building to optimize the theatrical experience in every aspect: sight, sound, and sensation.

Architects in America, in particular, took their cue from Wagner and Bayreuth. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Chicago School aimed to imitate Wagnerian grandeur in its buildings. For example, the city’s opera house imitated Bayreuth’s fan-shaped seating and had an icon of Wagner above the proscenium to signal that he was one of the theater’s guiding spirits. Architects of the Gothic Revival in Boston and New York City also explicitly executed Wagnerian plans for buildings that they hoped would be grandiose and democratic.

At the other end of the scale—a building steeped in Wagnerian influences but meant for the enjoyment of just one person—was Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany. Its creator and financer, King Ludwig II, was also a devoted patron of Wagner. Indeed, Ludwig II’s patronage had been the only way that the composer, perpetually in debt, had managed to stage his ambitious works.

Ludwig began building Neuschwanstein with an architect and a stage designer in 1869. Although it was never completed to fully match his vision, and the king died in mysterious circumstances before he could live there, the castle boasts an array of Wagnerian interiors. These include a throne room with murals depicting the Grail procession from Parsifal and a grotto inspired by Tannhäuser—a lasting monument to Wagner’s huge influence on all corners of late-19th-century culture.

What is it about the story of Salome and John the Baptist? Art depicting Biblical scenes may have been less prevalent by the mid-19th century, but this tale of a scandalous young princess had a sudden vogue in French art and literature. A craze for Salome’s daring dance and demands swept over the nation, and before long, she was scandalizing audiences further afield, too.

The Story of Salome and John the Baptist

The story of Salome and John the Baptist is told in the Bible’s New Testament, in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. King Herod II (or Herod Antipas) has imprisoned John the Baptist, the prophet who baptized Jesus Christ. John the Baptist has been going about Herod’s kingdom spreading dissent: casting out devils, anointing the sick, and urging sinners to repent.

It’s not only Herod who fears John the Baptist. His wife, Herodias, was previously married to Herod’s brother Philip, and John the Baptist has branded this marriage unlawful. Salome, Herodias’s daughter from her previous marriage, shares her mother’s ire for the prophet.

The climax of the story, and the scene which most interested subsequent artists, comes when Herod throws a birthday feast. The King James Bible passage from Mark’s Gospel runs:

“And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.”

Salome consults with her mother, and they ask for John the Baptist’s head. Herod sends an executioner to the prison and presents his stepdaughter with the prophet’s head on a platter.

Matthew’s Gospel tells the story similarly. Neither Gospel identifies Herodias’s daughter by name as Salome, and in some translations, she was also known as Herodias. Later texts, however, name Salome as the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas.

Salome in Renaissance and Baroque Art

This grisly story fascinated artists at a time when Biblical stories made up the majority of subjects for painting. The Old Masters were no strangers to depicting scenes of extreme violence. In some cases, representations of Salome with John the Baptist’s head have been mistaken for representations of a similar scene of female violence from the Bible: Judith beheading Holofernes.

These paintings tend to show Salome from the waist up, clutching a platter with the head of John the Baptist on it. Usually, Salome appears unrepentant, even innocent, in stark contrast to the horrific sight of the severed head.

It was less common (though not unheard of) for painters to depict the scene as a whole, showing Herod’s feast and all his guests. Depicting Salome alone was an opportunity for painters to execute half-length portraits using well-to-do women of the day as models.

Titian, in the early 16th century, made at least three paintings of Salome with the head of John the Baptist throughout his life. There is debate as to whether his painting of the subject circa 1515 in fact depicts Herodias, Salome’s mother, or perhaps Judith and Holofernes.

Guido Reni also painted the subject in 1638-39 and again in 1639-42. The earlier painting is notable as Salome wears a turban to suggest her derivation as a princess of Galilee. The second painting shows her daintily holding up her skirts in evocation of the dance she has just performed for the king.

Also in the early 17th century, Caravaggio painted the subject multiple times. His two paintings, titled Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (c. 1607 and c. 1610), show Salome and the platter, along with her maidservant and the executioner. Nor were these the only beheading scenes that captured Caravaggio’s imagination. Around this time, he executed paintings of Judith beheading Holofernes and David’s victory over Goliath, the high drama of each scene accentuated by the painter’s tenebrism, or use of extreme light and dark.

The Salome Vogue in France

Representations of Salome in visual art continued through the centuries, but in mid-19th-century France, she found herself at the center of an explosion of artistic activity that ranged across various art forms.

Painter Gustave Moreau and author Gustave Flaubert worked on their depictions of Salome in the same period, the mid-1870s. Both shift the viewer’s—or reader’s—focus from the horror of John the Baptist’s execution to the intrigue of Salome’s dance and its enchanting effect on Herod, who promises Salome anything she wants as a result of this dance.

Flaubert’s story Hérodias appeared in a collection called Three Tales in 1877. In his version, both the dance and the execution are part of a master plan concocted by Herodias because of her hatred for the prophet. She encourages her daughter to dance seductively for Herod so that he will grant her any wish.

The emphasis in Flaubert’s tale on Salome’s dance proved influential on stage productions of the scene. The first of these was the opera Hérodiade by Jules Massenet, first staged in 1881 with a libretto based on Flaubert’s story and an accompanying ballet suite. As well as indicating the artistic allure of the idea of Salome’s dance, Massenet’s opera introduced an important angle to the story by toying with a romance between Salome and John the Baptist.

Moreau, meanwhile, worked on paintings of Salome from the late 1860s, ultimately exhibiting Salome dancing before Herod and The Apparition in 1876. In these and an early, abandoned version titled Salome Tattooed, the viewer’s eye is drawn to Salome’s dancing body, robed in rich jewels, and pointing towards the right of the painting. In The Apparition, Salome points at John the Baptist’s head, which hovers in the air, ringed by a halo.

These paintings are typical of Moreau’s style and of the Symbolist movement he formed part of. The backdrop of Herod’s palace is incredibly ornate, and the paintings seem to glow, both with the jewels on Salome’s person and with a sense of divine mystery. In common with much Symbolist work, the paintings are both richly detailed yet suggestive rather than meticulously defined. They also draw our attention to the scene’s eroticism and (like Flaubert’s version) make Salome’s dance the focal point of the story.

As the title The Apparition suggests, Moreau depicted the scene as a dream or vision, with John the Baptist’s head floating eerily and Salome pointing to it in an oblique gesture. Is she triumphant or disturbed? Perhaps both, as subsequent artists in the Symbolist and Decadent traditions imagined. Stéphane Mallarmé wrote a poem based on Moreau’s painting in which Salome takes perverse pleasure in relishing the “horror” of her virginity and musing perversely on the allure of death.

Joris-Karl Huysmans, in his influential novel À rebours (1884), had his decadent protagonist Des Esseintes luxuriate in owning two masterpieces by Gustave Moreau, one of which is certainly The Apparition. Huysmans gives a long, detailed description of the painting, and the “maddening charms and depravities of the dancer” which had remained latent in the Bible story, until Moreau had brought them to the surface.

Huysmans defines Moreau’s Salome in a passage which effectively sums up the Victorian concept of the femme fatale or dangerous female beauty, which fascinated so many (mostly male) artists of the period:

“the symbolic deity of indestructible lust, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, of accursed Beauty, distinguished from all others by the catalepsy which stiffens her flesh and hardens her muscles; the monstrous Beast, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, baneful, like the Helen of antiquity, fatal to all who approach her, all who behold her, all whom she touches.”

Salome retains this evil significance for another artist, who viewed Moreau’s painting at The Louvre in 1884, the same year that he read Huysmans’s À rebours (which would inspire his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray): Oscar Wilde.

Salome Beyond Art and Literature

With his play Salome (1891), Oscar Wilde brought two French imports to English shores: Symbolist writing and the Salome craze. He even originally wrote the play in French. Wilde’s language in this play was starkly different from that of his other writing. The play focuses on motifs such as the paleness of Salome’s skin, the haunting glow of the moon, and the shared redness of Salome’s lips and John the Baptist’s blood.

Herodias, jealous and fearful of her daughter’s allure, repeatedly insists to her husband that he must not look at her, and indeed, multiple characters try to avoid looking at Salome, so ruinously seductive is the sight of her. The play also trains the audience’s attention on John the Baptist by placing his prison cell centrally on stage. His booming voice periodically interjects, prophesying the second coming of Christ and urging his imprisoners to repent.

Wilde emphasizes the idea of Salome’s attraction to John the Baptist in Massenet’s operatic version. Salome repeatedly tells him, “I will kiss thy mouth.” However, this attraction turns out to be perverse: it is only when his head is severed that Salome kisses his mouth.

Wilde’s most important addition to the Salome story was the Dance of the Seven Veils. In Flaubert’s Hérodias, one of Wilde’s sources, Salome dances on her hands in the manner of popular ‘Eastern’ dancers of the 19th century. Wilde, however, takes the minimal information about the dance from the Biblical account and combines it with Moreau’s and Huysmans’s visions of Salome as an exoticized femme fatale.

Wilde’s stage direction does not specify what the Dance of the Seven Veils entails, but it has generally been performed as a kind of striptease in which Salome removes seven veils one by one. When Wilde wrote the play, Western dancers were beginning to perform their own versions of what they considered Middle Eastern dances using veils, such as Loie Fuller’s dance in a version of The Arabian Nights in New York in 1886.

Salome then made her way to other arts, such as illustration, with Aubrey Beardsley‘s drawings based on Wilde’s play. One of his best-known illustrations shows Salome holding John the Baptist’s head aloft, ready to kiss. Although Salome is far more covered up in Beardsley’s depictions than in Moreau’s (her dress often occupies a vast swath of the page), the drawings are no less scandalous. Wilde had taken the subversive potential of the Salome story as it appeared in French art and literature, and added further layers of psychosexual intrigue.

Salome on Stage and Screen

With Wilde’s play, Salome became a more contentious subject than it had been during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when painters would show the grisly aftermath of her demands, but not the seductive means she employed to get what she wanted.

Wilde’s Salome could not be staged in Britain due to a ban on depicting Biblical subjects, and Wilde himself never saw the play on stage. This was all the more devastating as Wilde had specifically hoped to see it performed with the legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the leading role. As it was, the first performance was in Paris in 1896, with a different actress, while Wilde was serving his prison sentence.

There was further controversy around Wilde’s Salome regarding its English translation, which Aubrey Beardsley had hoped to provide, but which Wilde allowed his lover Lord Alfred Douglas to complete instead. Writing to Douglas from prison, after run-ins with Douglas’s family had led to his trials and imprisonment, Wilde lamented this decision, branding Douglas’s translation unworthy of him and of the play.

With Salome still banned in Britain, it was left to European theater companies to stage the play. One of these, in Berlin in 1902, caught the attention of the composer Richard Strauss, who recognized how well Wilde’s musical language, with its repetitive motifs, could be adapted into an opera.

Strauss’s Salome premiered in 1905 and attracted as much scandal as Wilde’s, if not more. The deeply provocative Dance of the Seven Veils was now combined with music which struck many listeners as simply too avant-garde for their delicate ears. Strauss’s post-Wagnerian use of leitmotifs, chromaticism, and dissonance was simply inappropriate for a Biblical subject, many felt. Never mind that Strauss often employed these techniques with cunning effect to emphasize the scene’s horror, such as the dissonant chord at the very end of the opera when Herod demands Salome be killed.

The lead role in Strauss’s Salome called for proficiency in both singing and dancing. However, in 1906, a Canadian dancer decided to stage a version of Salome inspired by Wilde’s and Strauss’s versions but focusing on the Dance of the Seven Veils.

When Maud Allan’s The Vision of Salome came to London in 1908, it embroiled the Salome story in even further scandal. Not only was it still forbidden to stage Biblical stories, but Allan included a horrifyingly realistic wax head of John the Baptist in her production, and most shocking of all, danced topless, her upper half covered only by jewelry.

Allan was the most notorious popularizer of the Salome vogue in the early 20th century, especially for audiences across America. But in Britain, she faced accusations of leading the public astray—despite this accusation coming as a result of a private performance. Allan was playing Salome in a 1918 production of Wilde’s play, for which audience members had to apply, making the performance technically private and therefore legal.

Nevertheless, MP Noel Pemberton-Billing, on hearing about Allan’s provocative rendition of the Dance of the Seven Veils, wrote in an article that she was promoting the ‘Cult of the Clitoris.’ Such dangerously seductive performances (which Billing decided must be the result of the involvement of homosexuals in the arts) were especially dangerous in times of war, as in 1918. For all he and the public knew, Allan could be a German conspirator, undermining the moral health of the nation.

Allan sued Billing for libel, and Wilde was again dragged into the courtroom—albeit now posthumously. Billing was found not guilty, Wilde’s play was condemned along with all of his other output as morally degrading, and Salome remained a contentious subject.

Whether in new stagings of Wilde’s and Strauss’s works, in film versions starring femmes fatales of the day such as Theda Bara (in 1918) or Rita Hayworth (in 1953), or in arresting visual depictions by Salvador Dalí and Francis Picabia, Salome has retained her power to shock and fascinate in equal measure.