River gods from Rubens, Poussin, Coypel and Boucher, with Naiads from Walter Crane, JW Waterhouse, Henrietta Rae and others.
Coypel
After the Disaster Year of 1672, the art market collapsed. Dutch artists reverted to the more traditional, but their impact on secular themes, and genres including landscapes and still life has endured.
Made of almost pure pigment, soft pastel painting didn’t start until after 1650. They excel in representing flesh, so became popular for portraits, and have since extended to other genres.
That well-muscled man brandishing a large olive-wood club and wearing a lion-skin can only be the ultimate high-testosterone uncouth hero, Hercules.
Hercules wrestling with Achelous, Jacob wrestling with the Angel, the young Samson wrestling with a lion, and wrestlers from Courbet, Bazille and Friant.
How Hercules and Achelous came to fight one another over the hand of Deianira, resulting in one of the river god’s horns being wrenched off to become the Horn of Plenty.
Largely restricted among Classical deities to Hermes, Cupid, and personifications of winds, heavenly bodies, and events, the gift of flight extends to angels and even saints.
The incredible myth of Leda and the swan, the transformation of Phaëthon’s brother Cycnus, King Arthur, Hesiod, Swan Pie and more.
How Arethusa was turned into a sacred stream, why King Lyncus was turned into a lynx, and what the Pierides were transformed into.
A simple story of an unsuccessful attempt at abduction and rape becomes a compositional struggle. It also results in the death of Heracles.
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