From mythology, Mercury’s caduceus and the Aesculapian Staff, walking sticks as a device indicating age, and those carried by travellers.
Botticelli
Unlike the face and hands, feet are usually covered in paintings. There are plenty of exceptions, but even the naked Phryné wore a pair of sandals.
From Aphrodite to Vesta, a reference summary of all the major Classical goddesses, with links to individual accounts.
It was the patrons who funded, enabled, and occasionally directed the movement towards realism and secular subjects, and developed the genres.
Two masterpieces of the Western canon turn a minor tale about a nymph into major narratives: Botticelli and Poussin explored.
Aglaea (representing splendor), Euphrosyne (mirth), and Thalia (good cheer), who together represent the better aspects of human nature, bit got Burne-Jones into trouble.
Originally a marsh just outside the city’s walls, it came to be the heart of the city, a market, meeting place, and the political hub.
They range in number from 3 to more than a dozen, have various names and roles, but in paintings are most commonly followers of the sun chariot.
Nine very different nativities, from the apocalyptic warnings of a martyr, through the Emperor Augustus, to Maurice Denis’ nativity in a contemporary French town.
Paintings from 1263 to 1504 show how the traditional Nativity developed. Examples by Duccio, Campin, Botticelli and Fra Bartolomeo.
