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Carl Holsøe (1865-1943): Interior, Light of Spring, oil on canvas, 66.4 x 52.4 cm
Enormously popular in his native Scandinavia and throughout the rest of Europe during his lifetime, Carl Holsøe had studied with Vilhelm Hammershoi at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and, together with Peder Ilsted, they formed the Danish School of Interior Painting. Their influence on one another is palpable in works such as Interior, Light of Spring. It epitomizes the effects for which they are most celebrated: an atmosphere that is dense, introspective, and immensely alluring to a modern aesthetic. As in many of his best works, here Holsøe has lingered over an intelligent play of reflected light and color and included a figure looking away, yielding her identity to the viewer's imagination.

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893): A Wet Winter's Evening, 1881, oil on canvas
'In a career of thirty years John Atkinson Grimshaw built up a reputation as an artist who presented a vision of contemporary life which others chose to ignore. In his later years he appeared to be turning to new subjects presented in a different way with a lightness which may indicate a turning point.'

In Grimshaw's paintings he sought to reflect the contrast of the man-made and the natural, opposing forces symbolic of the contrasts of the age of industrialisation when the natural world was tamed, restrained and confined like never before.
His present picture depicts an atmospheric nocturnal scene with a cobblestone path running alongside a stone wall. A large, full moon illuminates the sky, casting a soft glow through a layer of clouds. Bare, leafless trees frame the scene.
In the background, a dimly lit house with warm windows contrasts with the cool tones of the sky and surroundings. A solitary figure walks along the path, accompanied by a glowing streetlamp, enhancing the sense of quiet isolation. The ground appears wet, reflecting the moonlight and lamp light, suggesting recent rain.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde (1857–1942): Worn Out, 1889, oil on canvas, 207 x 270 cm, Brandts Kunstmuseum, Odense, Denmark
In this heart-rending depiction of o rural scene, we see a day-labourer lying crumpled on the rock-strewn ground of the barren field where he had been working. His onerous task, with other peasants, would have been to remove the stones from the ground, prior to ploughing and planting, and put them in piles awaiting disposal. The field although barren takes up eighty per cent of the picture. Look at the detail Hans Brendekilde has incorporated in his depiction of the ground. However, what is more emotive is the portrayal of the two figures in the foreground. The elderly peasant worker has stumbled and fallen to the ground. He is dressed in shabby clothes which are covered in dirt. One of his wooden clogs has fallen off during his fall. The heavy stones he had been carry in his apron, lie on the ground next to him. He had finally been overcome by exhaustion or maybe he has suffered a heart attack. A woman, maybe his wife or daughter or just a co-worker, has rushed to his aid. She is kneeling next to him and cradles his head.

Her mouth is open wide as she screams for somebody to come and help. Her impassioned plea has yet to be answered and she is both overwhelmed with fear for the man and her own helplessness.

Louis Béroud (1852 - 1916): La Place du Louvre, 1902, oil on canvas, 63,5 x 54,2 cm

Béroud painted his cityscapes in the manner of his close namesake and contemporary, Jean Béraud, (1849-1936).
His first entry to the Salon was in 1873 and he continued to exhibit there throughout his career, earning medals in 1883 and 1889 for Au Louvre and Salle dite des Sept Cheminées au Musée du Louvre respectively. It was these Parisian views and interiors of principal monuments for which he was most highly regarded. 'La Place du Louvre 'was painted just two years after his success at the Exposition Universelle 1900 where he earned a third class medal with Le Salon carré au Louvre

The painting depicts a serene, historical scene featuring the Louvre with its prominent dome and classical architecture, surrounded by lush green trees. In the foreground, a horse-drawn carriage with elegantly dressed passengers moves along a wide pathway. The scene includes people strolling, some with umbrellas, and a cyclist, all dressed in period clothing suggestive of the early 20th century. The sky is partly cloudy, adding a soft light to the picturesque, vintage atmosphere.

Hans Andersen Brendekilde (1857–1942): Springtime; The First Anemones, 1889, oil on canvas, 125.7 x 158.7 cm, Private collection

Some of the works by Brendekilde were more to do with the happier memories the artist had of rural life when lack of money could not detract from the pleasures of immersing oneself in nature such as his 1889 springtime painting, The First Anemones.

It shows a young woman walking with a little girl in a wood in the early Spring. The open floor of the wood is carpeted with abundant white flowers of wood anemone.
The young woman is unlikely to be the girl’s mother. Instead, she wears the black dress and white apron of another woman ‘in service’, in this case probably as the little girl’s maid or nanny. Both hold posies of anemone flowers: the girl holds her up, and is talking with her childhood companion; the woman stares slightly sadly into the distance, and her posy droops towards the ground.

Louis Béroud (1852-1930): Painter Copying a Murillo in the Louvre, 1912, oil on canvas

Louis Béroud spent much of his career painting inside the Louvre Museum in Paris.
After visiting the Louvre in the 1870s, an American traveler noted that 'along the galleries are numerous temporary stands, easels, etc., at which artists are constantly at work copying such paintings as they may have orders for, or hope to find purchasers for'

Stumbling across a working artist and his accoutrements was not a rare occurrence for the museum-goer in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Viewing and copying the museum's masterpieces was a traditional part of an artist's education, and a practice Béroud both enjoyed and used as the subject of at least twenty-six of his compositions.
After his moment of fame, Béroud returned to painting his copyists. In his 'Painter Copying a Murillo in the Louvre' from 1912, the only easel occupied is in front of Murillo’s 'The Young Beggar' (c 1645).

Louis Béroud (1852-1930): The Staircase of the Opera, 1877, oil on canvas, Musee Carnavalet - Musee de la Ville de Paris
Opera Garnier (Palais Garnier), perhaps the most interesting building from the era of Napoleon Ill, is the largest theater for lyric opera in the world.
Garnier’s building had an unprecedented 17 stories, seven of them beneath the stage. It seated 2,200 spectators, many of them in private boxes as large as living rooms. There was space on the 11,000 square meter stage for 450 performers.
Designed by Carnier and built between 1862 and 1875, its facade displays that profusion of decorative elements which was typical of the era.

The luxuriance of the lighting is well rendered in the painting ‘ The Staircase of the Opera' by Louis Béroud.
Two immense candelabra intertwined with female figures greet the spectators at ground level. A second series of lamps normally of a scale reserved for boulevards, border the top of the stairs to illuminate the slow gait of the crowd dressed in their Sunday best. Smaller lights were installed in the lunettes above the entablature to softly light the vaults.
Around this immense foyer of light that formed the staircase of the Opera, however, a relative shadowy half-light prevailed. Embedded in the depth of the surrounding archways, dimly lit balconies allowed observers to better view the luminous spectacle that unfolded at their feet.

Hubert Robert (1733–1808) The Fire of Rome (detail), 1785, oil on canvas, 75.5 x 93 cm, MuMa - Musée d'art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre, France
French artist Hubert Robert lived in Rome from 1754 to 1765, where his encounter with Panini and especially Piranesi changed the course of his career, making him not only a landscape artist, but also a painter of architecture, known as "Robert des ruines" (Robert of the ruins).

For Robert, choosing the historical theme of the fire of Rome in 64 AD was an opportunity to accommodate his taste for the representation of architecture while bowing to the current taste for the sublime, a source of new emotions. Structured round a backlit effect that unifies the composition, 'The Fire of Rome' portrays more than a historical event. It depicts the confrontation between two forces beyond human scale, as shown by the difference in scale, the power of history and the power of the natural element, which glorifies Rome even as it destroys the city. In this painting, Hubert Robert draws on the vocabulary of temple facades and arches so dear to him, making it an immense frame of human turmoil in the face of the historical event. The choice to portray only female figures fleeing from the fire adds dramatic power to the scene and stirs the emotions of viewers. Placing the ancient statue in the centre of the painting above the woman leading her child down the stairs by the hand symbolically translates the coexistence of two orders, the ancient world and the modern world —the divine world and the earthly world. Remarkable by its detailed study of the propagation of light, perceived in the many colourful bursts that highlight the stonework and the sculpted decor of the monuments, this work demonstrates great sensitivity to colour, a sign of the major changes to come in 19th-century painting.

Edward Poynter (1836–1919): The Ides of March - Caesar and his wife Calpurnia sees a comet, 1883, oil on canvas, 153 x 112.6 cm, Manchester Art Gallery
An illustration of Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', Calphurnia, Caesar's wife, is seen imploring him not to go to the senate-house, where he will be murdered. It is a view from inside an elaborate Roman home, with a highly polished floor and marble columns. Two figures stand in the centre of the picture, their backs to the viewer. On the right is Caesar who is looking across to his wife, Calpurnia. She looks up at her husband, her face lit in contrast to Caesar's which is in shadow. She gestures with her right hand towards a comet which has crossed the sky and is moving out of view. Just to the left of the comet's trail is the silhouette of a statue of a soldier, armed with a shield and spear, atop a pediment. The comet's trail passes through a section of clear sky which contrasts with the surrounding heavy clouds.On the left, within Caesar's home, a bust of the leader is lit from beneath by a lamp, throwing an eerie shadow onto the wall behind. A standard leans against the wall next to the bust. A trophy of Celtic arms and shields hangs between the two columns, symbols of Caesar's victories. (Manchester Art Gallery)

Aleksander Gierymski (1850 - 1901): Corner of Plönlein in Rothenburg, 1896-97, oil on canvas, 80 x 61 cm, National Museum, Warsaw
The last six years of Gierymski’s life were filled with anxiety and hectic creative tension. Initially, from 1895 to 1897, he returned to realism, as evidenced by his paintings of old town alleys and church interiors from Rothenburg and Schleissheim, in which the artist expressed his constant interest in the subject of light and colour.
In this painting, he portrayed the 'Corner of the Plönlein', one of the most famous postcard images from Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany in a realistic manner flooded with light. A narrow half-timbered building with a small fountain in front, it is framed by the Kobolzeller tower and the higher Siebers Tower, with lovingly restored townhouses to the right and left.