In earlier paintings, unicorns are usually intended to be real animals. They also have symbolic associations with chastity which lasted longer.
Domenichino
The origins of Troy explained, Helen as a princess of Troy, and Menelaos raises an expeditionary force under the command of Agamemnon. Without wind, though, their ships can’t sail.
From about 1530, painting started to change. Brushstrokes became visible, anatomy exaggerated, composition less balanced and ideal. First Mannerism, then came the Baroque.
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?
The first caused war between centaurs and humans, in the second many were turned into stone, and the third caused the Trojan War
Concludes a history of the unicorn in paint, from travellers’ tales and Paulus Potter, through Gustave Moreau into the early 20th century.
It’s ironic that the Pre-Raphaelites, who wanted to take painting back to the days before Raphael, then took up his themes.
The seductive sorceress Armida is quietly wreaking havoc among the crusaders besieging Jerusalem. Then Erminia leaves the city, in search of her love, the wounded warrior Tancred.
A beautiful, intense green used by the van Eycks, Tintoretto, Domenichino, and Renoir, it was never popular in oil paints, and quietly died out.
The ‘thousand ships’ of the Greek forces are gathered at Aulis, waiting for fair winds. A sign tells them how long the war against Troy will last, but they have to do something horrific first.
The Eclectic Light Company 