Although unusual in paintings, tortoises can have several different readings, from love to slow and faltering political reforms.
narrative
The Greeks had three objectives: to extinguish the line of succession in the Trojan royal family; to raze the city to the ground; and to seize booty.
Two of his paintings secured support for Greek independence, another had to be hidden from public view because it glorified liberty, and he was a major influence over Impressionism.
In the Roman arena, with a runaway slave, sparing the life of Daniel, at the feet of St Jerome and St Rufina, and snoring gently on the rug.
Ajax goes mad, then falls on his sword. The Greeks are told they need their master-archer and Achilles’ son, but still have to come up with a way of entering the city of Troy.
The model for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, this couple committed suicide when each presumed they had brought the death of the other.
Byron, no stranger to forbidden love, swam across the Dardanelles in 1810, retracing the strokes of the legendary Leander who died trying to reach his lover Hero.
More paintings of music, from the Aesthetic watercolour of Marie Spartali Stillman to folk dance, and Vuillard’s friends playing in his apartment.
Evoking music from a painting is a serious challenge, yet many artists have tried it. See if any of these work for you. From Lavinia Fontana to Degas.
First, Achilles kills Penthesileia, an Amazon, whose great beauty fills him with remorse. Then come Memnon, who proves Achilles’ undoing by Paris’s arrow.
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