Here Comes the Diesel by Leon Kossoff feels like a fight. Viewers must battle our way through the choppy chaotic brambles to even see the title’s train. Kossoff drives paint across the canvas like a barrage. It brings to mind the rush of a train, powering through forests and fields.
Allegories bring big ideas down to earth. Simon Vouet’s allegory of Wealth painting gives a grand example of this at work. Baroque painters, such as Vouet, reveled in allegory. They swam in it, like Scrooge McDuck with his pool of gold coins.
The Flea by Guiseppe Crespi tells a story without revealing the main character. We only see the reaction to the flea, not the pest itself. This intimate portrait from 18th century Italy depicts virtue.