Free e-books - Gratis eboeken

Welcome to this website!

This publicity-free site presents not only texts on the art of painting, but also a series of free, downloadable e-novels. The e-novels are offered in English and in Dutch. The texts on the art of painting are offered hereafter as Internet pages and as free, downloadable e-essays. You can find all downloadable e-novels and e-essays at Free e-books .

New and free novels by René Jean-Paul Dewil. The fourth and fifth novels of a series on a Jewish, originally Lithuanian-Prussian family.

The Family Vincius - Berlin is published in Free e-books tables

U vindt ook Nederlandstalige versies van e-romans als gratis eboeken op deze Internet site. Alle gratis aflaadbare Nederlandstalige e-romans staan in de Gratis eboeken tabel .

Nieuwe gratis romans van René Jean-Paul Dewil. De vierde en vijfde romans in een serie betreffende een Joodse familie, oorspronkelijk uit Litouwen.

Het Geslacht Vincius - Berlijn vindt u nu in Tabel van gratis eboeken .

Presentation of the Website on the Art of Painting

The Art of Painting and a Visual Journey into the Bible



'The Art of Painting' presents a series of texts. The aim of this non-commercial website is primarily to explain and to illustrate the art of painting by examples of paintings of Christian themes. Also other files on the general theme of the art of painting are presented. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century Western-European painters used more often than not themes from the Bible in their pictures. Therefore, paintings of Christian themes are the most available material to show the wonders of the art of painting. They are also marvellous examples of the spirituality expressed by the artists.

The 'Visual Journey into the Bible' has been categorised into several books. These books are:



A Classification of Christian Religious Themes

The books previously mentioned contain texts on Christian themes. A classification of the themes is presented on this website in a separate essay called 'A Classification of Christian Religious Themes in European Paintings'.


A Classification of Themes of Mythology, of Allegories and of Ancient History

A classification of the themes painters used of Mythology, of ancient History and in Allegories is is presented on this website in a separate essay called 'Themes of Mythology, Allegories and Ancient History in Painting'.


The Art of Painting explained

The theory of the art of painting is explained in its elements of style in the book 'Educating Arte', presented on this website.

In this text an old painter, Zeuxis, teaches a young girl, called Artemisia, all the style elements of the art. He explains the emotional value of lines, of colours, of shapes, perspective, composition, mood, and so on.
As the title indicates, this is foremost an educational book. It is written as a series of dialogues. I hope that the dialogue style makes the theory easily readable in a playful way. Each chapter of this book can be read separately.


Female Painters

As a special homage to female painters, there is on this website a comprehensive list of the outstanding female painters of which works have been seen in one or other form by the author of the website.

The list is at the page:


A List of Paintings

This website could not have been possible without the author having seen thousands of paintings. A list of currently about 50,000 paintings, with the names of the artists that made them, the museums in which they can be found, and - for many of them - their contents classification, is provided on this website in spreadsheet format. The spreadsheet will be regularly updated with more titles of paintings, and with paintings of more themes.

The spreadsheet (containing 4 sheets) can be downloaded from the download section: File Downloads .

The spreadsheet contains 4 sheets with not only the list of paintings but also the codes of the classifications of the contents of the works and the museum codes applied. For further explanation of the columns of the sheets, see the page:


How to navigate on this website?

It is best to start the website www.theartofpainting.be by entering this URL address directly in the address field of your browser. The website uses frames, and when you come from one of the sub-pages of the website you will miss these frames and you will then also miss the navigation frame. Precisely this navigation frame provides you with an overview of what can be accessed on the website and with easy browsing.

The easiest way to read a particular chapter is to click on the subjects in the navigation bar at the left side of your screen. The text of the chapters will then appear in the main frame of your screen window.

You can navigate also by using the 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons at the bottom of each text page. The 'Book' button there will bring you back to the Table of Contents of the book you are currently in.

If you prefer the text on a full screen, in another window, you can click on the end button at the top of each text, which bears the inscription 'Full new Screen'. Take care however: when you action the navigation buttons on such a page, the changes will occur in the original multi-framed window; make sure to close the full window and return to the original multi-frame.

If you want to reach the texts of the site by another way than by the list of subjects (themes), as presented in the navigation screen, you might try the Cross-Reference Tables . These provide for additional entries to the text by the name of the painters of the theme, and by the name of the museums that exhibit the works.

On the Texts

The author is sorry to not have been able to include pictures of the paintings. That has not been possible due to obvious reasons of copyrights. Please accept his apologies for that. Most of the paintings are very well-known however, so it should not be too difficult to find on the Internet or in popular art books reproductions of the paintings.

The abbreviation of 'circa' has been proposed as 'ca.' instead of the UK-English correct 'c.' The author apologizes for having simplified certain names, mainly Czech and Hungarian, by leaving out many of the marks on the letters; adding these marks proved too difficult in the Latin-2 language script he used with his text processor.

The references in superscript refer to the numbers of the books listed in the 'List of References'.

Direct quotations from the Bible come mostly from 'The New Jerusalem Bible'. These are indicated by the reference in superscript of 'G38'. The author includes here the acknowledgement that they have been 'Taken from the New Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc, and used by permission of the publishers'. The author's sincere thanks go to these publishers.

All the texts of this website are available in PDF format, in files per book. In order to download the texts, go to the page specifically provided for the PDF Downloads . This page is also indicated in the navigation frame, in the left window of this site.

On the Author

A short biography and other information on the author can be found in the page Contact me .

Copyright notice

René Dewil - All rights reserved. The electronic form of these Internet documents are under copyright protection. Permission is granted for electronic copying of the e-essays, and for distribution in print form for educational purposes of the e-essays. Permission is granted for personal use only for all files and Internet pages. If you do reduplicate the e-essays of parts thereof, indicate the source as 'René Dewil - The Art of Painting - Copyright © '. No permission is granted for commercial use of any document, and if you would like to reproduce this work for commercial purposes in all or in part, in any form, as in selling it as a book or published compilation, then you must ask for the author's permission formally and separately.

Privacy Notice

The only interaction that this website offers is when you sent an e-mail (See Contact me ). Your e-mail address will only be stored for the duration of the e-mail conversation and it will not be communicated to other parties for whatever reason without your explicit agreement.

Enjoy the website!




Website Last Updated: January 2021.