How Perseus came to behead Medusa, and how her head restored order to the worst wedding reception ever. In paint, of course.
myth
Formerly a beautiful young woman, she was turned into a monster by Minerva, and painted by Caravaggio, Rubens, Klimt, and others.
Shepherds and shepherdesses painted in stories, from classical myth, through the Bible and Christ’s nativity, to epic poetry, including Milton’s Paradise Lost.
References to Botticelli’s Primavera and Poussin by Tiepolo, and in the late 19th century: Flora and the Spring.
Two masterworks: Botticelli’s Primavera (Spring) and Poussin’s Empire of Flora, telling stories from Ovid. And they paintings they influenced.
From 1907, he painted a series of mythological works, and increasingly turned to landscapes, some of which are most unusual, almost surreal.
His later pastels are particularly sublime, with high chroma and mythical stories, include a drunken man being loaded onto a donkey.
After painting portraits of the Pope during his second visit to Italy, he returns to paint the king’s niece and new bride, Las Meninas, and his last myth.
His talent was spotted early, and he was taken to Rome to study under Poussin in his workshop. He returned to Paris and became the king’s ‘greatest French artist of all time’.
With the exception of his early history paintings and a few portraits of men, his entire career was devoted to painting beautiful women.
