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.
Rubens
Venus had been terrified of Adonis going hunting, and cautioned him about going near savage beasts. But he wasn’t to be put off. Superb paintings by Veronese, Titian, Rubens, and others.
Struck by a ricocheting discus, the young man’s blood is transformed into hyacinth flowers.
One of Ovid’s most painted stories, still popular, with some of the finest depictions by Poussin, Rubens, Corot, Watts, Scheffer, and others.
How a maidservant brings a protracted labour to a successful conclusion, the origin of the Milky Way, and an infant who strangles serpents for fun.
How a centaur tried to abduct Hercules’ new bride, and the delayed revenge which led to the death of Hercules.
Ovid, through Achelous the river god, explains how the Horn of Plenty was wrenched from Achelous’ head in a fight with Hercules. With a gem of modern narrative painting too.
It pays to welcome strangers, and to help them rest and recover, particularly when they turn out to be Jupiter and Mercury. A wonderful story, and 4 superb paintings.
Meleager is burned to death by proxy, his sisters transformed to guinea hens. Then Achelous transforms nymphs into islands.
Five of the best stories and finest paintings from the first half of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the tragic lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, to the Calydonian boar hunt.
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