John James Wilson Art

“Being There,” an original oil on canvas by Robert K. White, is a piece for the true collector. White’s careful attention to detail and vivid use of browns and reds project from the painting, immediately capturing the viewer's attention and highlighting the artist's keen ability to capture emotion and life - all in a brushstroke. White's talent for depicting light and shadow provides the foundation for him to deliver subjects and scenes to the viewer's eye. This masterful work would make a great addition to an art collection and enhance most any home, perfect for those who have an affinity for cityscapes, theater, and architecture. In the artist’s own words, “I don’t paint what is inside of me; I paint what I see outside of me. I’m an observer. If I see something and I feel an affinity for it, something just clicks in my head. I’ll make the decision right then and there to paint that particular subject during that particular moment. It’s a perfect moment. Once something has caught my eye and I’ve heard the “perfect” click, it’s like a photograph has been taken in my mind’s eye. I only have a few days of clarity with that image. I have to start the painting quickly or else it will be gone and I will lose that image forever.” Artist: ROBERT KENNETH WHITE...

Untitled Riverscape, an original oil on canvas by George Thompson Pritchard, is a piece for the true collector. An impressively calming nature of this plein-air painting draws you in...

GOVERT VAN EMMERIK (1808-1882) View on the Governor’s Palace in Paramaribo, Surinam Signed and dated 1856 Oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm In large gilt...

Stanley Sporny (American 1946 - 2008) A view into a stream with overhanging branches reflected in the water. A beautiful oil painting that explores the stream bottom as well as the ...

Rene Genis (French 1922-2004) “Les Parcs” Arcachon Bay, France. Oil on Canvas, framed. Signed lower right, signed and titled on back. Wonderful blues, greens and browns in a shore l...

Rene Genis (French 1922-2004) “Les Falaise Normande” / The Cliffs of Normand. A sea scape with high cliffs, the beach, and two fishermen. The cliffs are in browns, tans and olives a...

Landscape painting with figures, a large central deciduous tree, and cattle in the background. Unsigned. Oil on canvas, relined. Image size: 74 x 101 cm. Empire frame, gold-patinate...

This delightful turn of the century (early 20th century) oil on canvas painting represents an Italian landscape with one of the most famous squares in the world: Piazza San Marco in ...

Provenance: The Marchesi Strozzi, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence Sale, Christie’s, London, May 20, 1993, lot 315, as by Carl Borromaus Andreas Ruthart...

Max Usadel (ca.1880-1950), Temple of Paestum, dat. 1912 View of the temple of Paestum with two ox carts in the foreground. The setting sun creates a dramati...

Paul Guiramand (French 1926-2007) Abstract painting of a house by a lake. Oil on Canvas. Expressive blues of the water and sky with greens reds, brow...

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...