In earlier paintings, unicorns are usually intended to be real animals. They also have symbolic associations with chastity which lasted longer.
Bosch
The goddess Diana, Selene, the Virgin and Child, or is it just the moon in the sky of a pastoral landscape? Paintings from Bosch to van Gogh.
Depicted as a physical place full of demons, torment and eternal suffering, and a deterrent to all those who commit sins on earth.
Christian visions of Heaven or Paradise are usually less of a location than an array of figures. Examples from 1475-1916.
Varnish has been applied to protect the paint layer. But layers of old varnish discolour and trap dirt and contaminants, letting a painting vanish into the dark.
Masaccio’s 20-panel polyptych, Bosch’s triptych, and one of the most substantial paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. Even Monet’s Grainstacks series.
A collection of paintings with strange incongruities that can make them impossible to read, from Masaccio to Gérôme.
In quest of the Chimera from classical mythology in paintings of Michelangelo, Bosch, de Vos and others.
Paintings that don’t look like they were intended to be, from Leonardo’s Last Supper, to Manet’s cut-up Execution of Emperor Maximilian.
Two birds associated with myth: Zeus’s eagle, often used to indicate his presence in disguise, and the symbol of night and wisdom, the owl.
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