Beatrice is a female given name which comes from Latin Beatrix based on Viatrixmeaning “female traveler/voyager” though the spelling was later altered to resemble beatus, which comes from Latin meaning “happy, fortunate, blessed” derived from PIE root word *dew- (to show favor, revere). Beatrice is one of the main characters in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599).

Origin: Proto-Indo-European

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Variants:

• Beatrix (Late Roman, German, Hungarian, Dutch, English)
• Viatrix (Late Roman)
• Béatrice (French)
• Beatrise (Latvian)
• Beatrycze (Polish)
• Beatriz (Spanish, Portuguese)
• Beatriu (Catalan)
• Beitris (Scottish)
• Betrys (Welsh)

Male forms:

• Viator (Late Roman)

Augusta is the feminine form of Augustus, which was originally used as a name and title for the first Roman Emperor, Gaius Octavius, and which eventually passed on as a title to other Roman emperors. It means “majestic, venerable, great” from Latin augere (to increase, augment) which derives from a PIE root word.

Origin: Proto-Indo-European

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Variants:

• Auguste (German)
• Avgusta (Slovene)
• Augustina (Ancient Roman, English)
• Augustine (French, German)
• Agostina (Italian)
• Agustina (Spanish)
• Augustyna (Polish)
• Ágústína (Icelandic)
• Augustîna (Greenlandic)
• August (English)

Male forms:

• Augustus (Ancient Roman, Dutch, English)
• Augustinus (Ancient Roman)
• Augustine (English)
• August (German, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Catalan, English)
• Aukusti (Finnish)
• Auguste (French)
• Augusto (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese)
• Augusts (Latvian)
• Augustas (Lithuanian)
• Augustinas (Lithuanian)
• Avgust (Slovene, Russian, Ukrainian)
• Augustin (French, Czech, Romanian, Croatian, German)
• Augustín (Slovak, Czech)
• Agustí (Catalan)
• Augustijn (Dutch)
• Austin (English)
• Austen (English)
• Austyn (English)
• Ágoston (Hungarian)
• Agostino (Italian)
• Augustyn (Polish)
• Agostinho (Portuguese)
• Avguštin (Slovak)

Two hundred years ago today, the major British art critic and writer John Ruskin was born in London. Although Ruskin appears to have painted only in watercolour, and for his own ends, this article takes a look at some of his paintings and his role as a major influence on British painting.

Ruskin was born into an affluent family, and travelled widely in the UK and Europe when still a child. In 1836, he started studies in Classics (‘Greats’) at Christ Church College in Oxford University, but his health was poor and academic achievements limited; he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1839, at his third attempt. In 1842, he was awarded a rare “honorary double fourth-class” degree.

He published his first substantial writing on painting the following year, which was to become the first volume of his highly influential series Modern Painters. This appeared anonymously as the work…

Over the last year, I have been gradually amassing articles here as I have been studying Naturalist painting in the late nineteenth century. This is the final article in a series of nine which brings together a summary, indexed against the previous eight articles in the series, links to each of the articles about themes in Naturalist painting, an alphabetical list of artists covered in separate articles, and a list of recommended books.

I will try to keep this article updated, so that you can use it as a reference.

Naturalist painting is the visual art sibling of literary Naturalism, typified by the Rougon-Macquart novels of Émile Zola.

1 Emergence (1883)

It emerged gradually from ‘social realist’ painting, particularly that of rural deprivation, notably the work of Jean-François Millet, during the 1860s and 70s.

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884), Love in the Village (1882), oil on canvas, 194 × 180 cm, Pushkin…