Painting captions give information you’d never get from looking at an image, and that in turn tells you even more. This series looks beyond mere images at the media behind them.
Elsheimer
Aeneas and his family flee the burning city of Troy, losing his wife on the way. They sail to Delos, where they see the trees that Latona gripped when giving birth to Apollo and Diana.
From those run and staffed by religious orders around 1600 to the 19th century’s revolution in nursing, and dazzlingly white interiors with radiators.
A poor couple entertained two men as well as they could in their humble cottage. Their guests turned out to be Jupiter and Mercury, who rewarded them for their hospitality.
Myths of Perseus and Atlas, Philemon and Baucis, and the peasants of Lycia teach the ancient code of hospitality to strangers.
Cupid makes Pluto fall in love with Ceres’ young daughter Proserpine. When the king of Hades carries her off with him, there are consequences for the whole world.
The raven’s feathers are changed from white to black, the crow replaced by an owl originally threatened by Neptune’s rape, and more.
Ursa Major, often the only constellation people know today, the Milky Way, the Pleiades, and Sagittarius.
An early Rembrandt, chiaroscuro lighting, one of Adam Elsheimer’s oil on copper paintings, above Frederick the Great, and adorning Goya’s painting hat.
In chiaroscuro, for enlightenment, at the centre of family and friends at dinner, and in special safety lamps carried underground by coal miners.
The Eclectic Light Company 