How we got from one of the most senior gods, and a winged young man, to a chubby infant armed with a bow and arrow, let alone an unknown former saint.
Boucher
Whether gentle, young and pipe-playing or hoary and older, he had the body of a man and the legs of a goat. Is he tender, or ribald?
Beards on Father Time, river gods, God the Father, ancient mariners, and lots and lots of artists, especially the Nabis.
Was a primordial deity, attendant at Aphrodite’s birth, or her son by Ares/Mars? When did he get his bow and arrows? Answered in fine paintings.
Some of the greatest figurative artists including Botticelli, Titian, Poussin, Boucher, Ingres, Moreau, and Joseph Stella.
Buried in the introduction to day 4, this became La Fontaine’s fable of Brother Philippe’s Geese, was painted by Boucher and others, entered French idiom, and was alluded to by a vanished painting by Gauguin.
A common convention in paintings of classical myth, the river god was a bearded old man with a put pouring forth water, often seen with a Naiad, his daughter.
A succession of victories, many by his personal bravery and leadership from the front. But ultimately they were unsuccessful – and Pyrrhic.
Rembrandt’s masterpiece looking deep into Bathsheba’s predicament, but it was von Stuck who first suggested that she may have been a willing participant.
How Vertumnus tried to trick Pomona into loving him, then told her a threatening story. Neither worked: it was being himself that won her in the end.
The Eclectic Light Company 