In classical times, they were strummed like a guitar rather than plucked. Apollo, Orpheus and lyric poets from Raphael, Rubens, Waterhouse and others.
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Young Phaëthon challenges the god of the sun, Phoebus, to prove he is his father, and takes his chariot on a ride to disaster and death.
By the end of the 18th century, remains of Pompeii were being excavated and inspired painters to re-imagine life and death in the city.
When Pompeii was buried by debris from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, many fine Roman paintings were preserved. Here’s a selection.
Jupiter wants Io, but after raping her turns her into a cow for safe-keeping. Juno suspects, though, and puts the cow under the watchful hundred eyes of Argus.
Cupid gets revenge on Apollo by making him fall in love with Daphne, and she refusing to co-operate. The result is her being transformed into the laurel.
Franz von Stuck, Lovis Corinth, Jacek Malczewski, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Albin Egger-Lienz, and Edmond Aman-Jean tell stories from 1923.
How Perseus comes to the aid of Andromeda as she’s left chained to a rock, awaiting her fate as the next meal of Cetus the sea-monster.
the personification of vigilance, Mary Magdalen, in shadowplay, held by Florence Nightingale ‘the lady of the lamp’, and associated with overwork and tiredness.
Shackles of the night, in a well, as a rope ladder how Romeo meets Juliet, trussing up a robber, or hanging John Brown, the abolitionist.
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