Ali Miller on Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Alexa Wilding fluctuates between a confident and seductive nymph, a stiff and unamused model, and a vulnerable damsel awaiting a rescue.

Suzanne Stryk on Maria Sibylla Merian

Most alluring to me is her enviable touch—the delicately notched antennae, chomped and curled leaves, or gooey-pale larvae casting shadows as they inch along.

Sarah Slappey on James Ensor

James Ensor, The Tribulations of Saint Anthony, 1887, Oil on canvas, 46 ⅜ x 66 inches James Ensor, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and Hieronymous Bosch have all painted depictions of the torment of Saint Anthony by demons and monsters. In Ensor’s Tribulations of Saint...

Sophia Narrett on Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas, Scene of War in the Middle Ages, 1865, Oil and petrol on paper glued on canvas, 33.5 x 58 cm When I first saw Degas’s Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet "La Source" I felt like I was experiencing the actual ballet as an audience member might have,...

Tony Robbin on Bonnard’s Bathers

It is often said that Pierre Bonnard’s paintings featuring bathers are intimate works, as the women are caught unawares, glimpsed in unguarded and private moments…

Barry Nemett on Gwen John

The building weighs less than a flower. The parasol stem dreams about being a wicker chair…