It looks like a regular, exquisitely beautiful landscape, with forests, rugged hills, and rivers. In fact it bears a story, told largely in its figures.
narrative
Princess, sorceress, seductress, wife, mother, and vengeful filicide – one of the most complex characters to paint. Known from her letter in Heroides, and a lost work by Ovid.
Each of the paintings exhibited by Munch in 1895 tells a part of his story of ‘the life of the soul’, of love between man and woman. And of Munch’s own life.
Juno takes a day-trip to Hades in her bid to unleash one of the Furies on this unfortunate couple. A wonderful Brueghel which is as good as Bosch at his best.
A handscroll, copied from an original painted before 400 CE, tells a complex story in detail a millennium before the European Renaissance.
Who was Ovid, and how did he come to write so much on mythology? Illustrated with some fine paintings of his life by Poussin, Delacroix, and Turner.
Dragged to a dungeon by her hair, she had committed no crime – indeed, she had only been faithful to her husband.
The last of the stories told by the daughters of Minyas, and among the most unusual of myths. Ovid’s account has depth, and these paintings are as thought-provoking.
Three stories in a single telling, about Helios/Sol, the personification of the Sun. His role in the adultery of Venus and Mars, and his two lovers and their bitter rivalry.
The anger of Achilles almost brought the Greek war against Troy to a grinding halt. But is Homer’s account fair, or was there more to it?
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