How Perseus came to behead Medusa, and how her head restored order to the worst wedding reception ever. In paint, of course.
Ricci
Two masterworks: Botticelli’s Primavera (Spring) and Poussin’s Empire of Flora, telling stories from Ovid. And they paintings they influenced.
Later painting of the Black Death and plague stressed the importance of divine intervention in limiting its spread.
Even Poussin used this narrative form. Here are other example right up to 1947, including paintings by Corot, Munch, Corinth, and others.
After three brief tales of strange happenings in early Rome, Ovid gives an account of the bringing of the god Aesculapius to the city, to end an epidemic.
The ultimately disastrous wedding feast ends with its guests killing one another in a series of pitched battles, after one guest tried to abduct the bride.
Even when you’re the King of Kings, being depicted in art is not easy. There’s one masterpiece by Rembrandt which is perhaps appropriate to the ruler of the greatest empire of its time.
Definitely a wedding to remember: how Perseus and Andromeda didn’t have a photographer but a sculptor to preserve their memories.
Who or what exactly is Cupid? How did a mischievous and rather obese infant come to represent love?
Not an easy story to paint, Ovid’s clear account has been largely ignored. Because it is now too absurd to show?
