🖌️🎨 Edwin Longsden Long (1829-1891) was an English genre and portrait painter, author of paintings on historical and biblical subjects.

 🖌️🎨 Edwin Longsden Long (1829-1891) was an English genre and portrait painter, author of paintings on historical and biblical subjects.

Edwin was born into the family of a hairdresser James Long in Bath (England). The future painter received his initial art education at Dr. Viner's school. Later, he honed his skills in London, at the British Museum and at the school of James Matthews Lee.
In 1857, the artist made a creative trip to Spain, where he spent a lot of time and came under the influence of the works of Velazquez, as well as other famous Spaniards, which was clearly reflected in his works. Here he began to paint genre paintings that became the embodiment of Spanish life at that time.
And after traveling through Syria and Egypt in 1874, the master's work radically changed, receiving a new direction. Biblical and historical subjects appeared in his works. Long's first significant paintings of that time are considered to be "The Petitioner" and "The Babylonian Marriage Market". In 1881, Edwin was awarded the title of Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Art critics attribute Long's late period work to the art movement called Orientalism, the essence of which was to depict subjects and images that were extremely far from reality.
This movement mainly affected artists from Europe, who tried to depict the alien world of Asia, with its strange customs and traditions, radically different from European ones. And since no one could know for sure what was really happening behind the tight doors of the harems of the eastern rulers, the artists showed all their rich fantasy and imagination. This gave rise to a whole movement in painting. At the same time, the painters based their subjects on the treatises of ancient Greek historians.

Sources: artrenewal; Pinterest; wikipedia; blackburnmuseum.org; vakin.livejournal.com.