Wielded by the Etruscan god of death Charun, Hephaistos or Vulcan, Jael as she killed Sisera, those who nailed Christ to the cross, and the Norse god Thor.
Tintoretto
Superb paintings of this tragedy from Roman history, by Veronese, Reni, Gentileschi, Rembrandt and Godfrey Kneller.
Paintings from 1400, including Tintoretto’s masterpiece, Veronese, and three by Artemisia Gentileschi, telling this story.
Jacob’s Ladder, the Crucifixion, scaling the walls of Charlemagne’s Paris, picking fruit, or just crossing a dry stone wall.
In earlier paintings, unicorns are usually intended to be real animals. They also have symbolic associations with chastity which lasted longer.
After being entertained by Demodocus’ tale of Venus and Mars, Odysseus is delivered in the dead of night, still asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca.
The goddess Diana, Selene, the Virgin and Child, or is it just the moon in the sky of a pastoral landscape? Paintings from Bosch to van Gogh.
Before photography, the only opportunity to see your face, painters took advantage of the Venus Effect to break optical rules and show faces that couldn’t have been seen in the mirror.
Christian visions of Heaven or Paradise are usually less of a location than an array of figures. Examples from 1475-1916.
Unfinished paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Bonington, Bazille, Bastien-Lepage, Moreau and others.
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