Snakes and serpents in myth, legend and religion are thoroughly sinister and bad, with one curious exception. A journey across centuries of images.
Rubens
The Grim Reaper, complete with scythe, first appeared in the Middle Ages and became popular in the 19th century. It’s one of the few phrases drawn from visual art.
From Rubens’ double-portrait with Isabella Brant, and Rembrandt’s with Saskia, to Paul Signac’s wife with a parasol and Ferdinand Hodler’s wife Berthe Jacques.
From Nabi women climbing stepladders to gathering plums in baskets, with a visit to the garden of the Hesperides, and ending in the garden of Eden.
The north wind, cold and harbinger of winter, who abducted an Athenian princess in so many paintings. Also one painting which could show Euros, the east wind.
The personification of the west wind, to the Greeks gentle and responsible for bringing the start of the growing season, and the abduction and rape of a nymph who became Flora.
Starting from Egyptian blue in ancient times, pigments preferred by painters for sky blue have changed repeatedly. Here’s a brief history.
How the grand-daughters of the Duchess of Devonshire posed for the triple portrait and referred back to any orgiastic scene of bacchanalian revelry.
On the morning of 22 August 1911, he arrived to paint the Mona Lisa, but it had vanished from the wall of the Louvre. Who had stolen it?
From sacred symbols in a mosaic of Theodora and the Adoration of the Lamb, to roadside watering holes, and the town’s fresh water supply.
The Eclectic Light Company 