occupation

Self Defense

In Self Defense, a boy prepares a snowball, likely in response to one just launched at him. Yet the painting is not just of child’s play. In the background are advertisements for a notorious lottery scheme, a lowbrow musical rabble rouser, and an announcement for a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the first staging of […]

Raphael

At a time when American artists were looking abroad for inspiration, European Old Masters became popular portrait subjects. During the 1800s, painters held the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael in high regard and viewed his art as marking a rebirth of the Classical spirit. Presented with elegant surface detail, Thomas Crawford’s Raphael is as […]

Hamlet and Horatio Before the Gravediggers (Hamlet et Horatio Devant les Fossoyeurs), from the Hamlet series

Two laborers preparing Ophelia’s grave provide comic relief when they unearth and banter about the skull of Yorick, a court jester Hamlet had known as a child. Touched by memories, Hamlet sighs and says, “Alas, poor Yorick!” Delacroix first developed this composition in 1839 for an oil painting. He adopted it for the lithograph […]

Lear and the Fool (From Book King Lear)

Lear and Fool Act III, Scene VI: “Arraign her first, ’tis Goneril.” Out on the heath, Lear and the Fool talk about the king’s daughters’ dishonesty.

King Lear (From Book King Lear)

A portrait of the title character shows the king as a mature but determined man. Features of his clothing and accoutrements are only summarily indicated with abstract marks.

King Lear (From Book King Lear)

Lear Act I, Scene I: “Therefore be gone without our grace” Angered by Cordelia’s refusal to join her sisters in grossly and falsely flattering their father, Lear disinherits and banishes her.