Full contents for this series, with lists of artists considered in each of its articles, and links to the articles.
Reni
An overview starting with the sculptural folds of the late 13th century, peaking with Raphael and Rembrandt, and dissolving with Renoir and Sargent in the early 20th century.
What is that princess doing dressed for a pageant, and what is happening to her swatch of carmine fabric? How billows express motion.
How Odysseus and his crew escaped the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, then became turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe.
Wonderful paintings by Reni, Fragonard, Evelyn De Morgan, Poussin, Rubens, and a very unusual late Fantin-Latour.
Isn’t that a horrific example of racism: a white man standing on the head of a Black man? Not when you read the image carefully.
Was she abducted, seduced, or seducer? Victim or whore? Ovid’s pair of letters between Helen and Paris raises questions which many artists have tried to tackle.
The story of Ulysses’ encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus is told by a survivor from the Odyssey. Superb paintings by Turner, Böcklin, Reni, and others.
What to our ancestors would have been blurred and defective images are now accepted as depicting motion. How our perception has changed, thanks to photography.
The man beats the woman quite unfairly, then on the way home they stop off to make love in a temple. Their misbehaviour is punished. More superb narrative paintings.
