The fall of Icarus, Calydonian boar hunt, Philemon and Baucis, the origin of the Horn of Plenty, death of Hercules, Orpheus and Eurydice, death of Hyacinthus, Pygmalion and Galatea, death of Adonis, and of Orpheus.
Reni
Hercules wrestling with Achelous, Jacob wrestling with the Angel, the young Samson wrestling with a lion, and wrestlers from Courbet, Bazille and Friant.
A survivor from Ulysses’ crew gives a brief account of the encounter between Ulysses and the Cyclops Polyphemus, and its outcome.
Told by an oracle she shouldn’t marry, she challenges any man to a running race to win her hand in marriage. When Hippomenes succeeds, things go wrong for the couple.
When the centaur Nessus tried to abduct Hercules’ wife, he was impaled by an arrow. He set up the later death of the hero, who was destroyed by poison in his own arrow.
How Hercules and Achelous came to fight one another over the hand of Deianira, resulting in one of the river god’s horns being wrenched off to become the Horn of Plenty.
Charon ferrying the dead to the Underworld, and rarely back again, Psyche in her quest, the centaur Nessus, and lots of sheep and cattle.
Hyacinthus killed by a discus, a couple married as the result of a running race, funeral games, Roman spectacle, and the games of childhood.
A simple story of an unsuccessful attempt at abduction and rape becomes a compositional struggle. It also results in the death of Heracles.
Superb paintings of this tragedy from Roman history, by Veronese, Reni, Gentileschi, Rembrandt and Godfrey Kneller.
