From Dürer’s groundbreaking hare to the fable of the hare and the tortoise, a hidden hare in a well-known Turner and a white rabbit for the first of the month?
Tintoretto
Jupiter’s bundle of thunderbolts that have survived into computer technology, lightning in great floods, in the destruction of Tyre, and the three witches in Macbeth.
One for sorrow, two for joy, according to the rhyme. Magpies play cameo roles in several major paintings, as shown here.
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.
Allegories using classical deities, by Tintoretto and Rubens. Accounts of how the Sabine women brought peace to Rome, and peace treaties of Charlemagne and Barbarossa.
Juno won’t let the labour of Hercules’ mother progress, so one of maids tricks Lucina into allowing the infant’s delivery, for which the maid is turned into a weasel.
Polyphemus watching the naked Acis, King David watching Bathsheba, two old elders watching Susanna bathing, each of them voyeurs.
What happens when a mortal is turned into a heavenly body, as with Orion; or when the Virgin Mary was taken up into Heaven.
Apollo’s chariot, that of Pluto and Achilles, the Trojan Horse, Lady Godiva’s, and the mount of Saint George when he slays the dragon.
Largely restricted among Classical deities to Hermes, Cupid, and personifications of winds, heavenly bodies, and events, the gift of flight extends to angels and even saints.
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