Cadmus, Europa’s brother, kills a dragon and sows its teeth to grow into the men who help him build Thebes. But his grandson Actaeon is killed when he catches Diana bathing.
Titian
Is that the god Cupid, a Cupid, a putto, an amorino, or a cherub? The differences explained and illustrated in paintings by Botticelli, Titian, Raphael and others.
The Mona Lisa illusion, Mary Magdalene with eyes red from tears or shut in ecstasy, closed from fatigue, or nearly blinded by light.
From the tribute to a dead colleague, and a record of an important exhibition, to the downright enigmatic embedded paintings of Velázquez, Courbet and others.
The stories of Samson, whose prodigious strength depended on not having his hair cut, and Mary Magdalene, who dried Christ’s feet with her hair.
What is that princess doing dressed for a pageant, and what is happening to her swatch of carmine fabric? How billows express motion.
How we got from one of the most senior gods, and a winged young man, to a chubby infant armed with a bow and arrow, let alone an unknown former saint.
From his battle with the sea monster to the deadly fight at his wedding to Andromeda, paintings by Titian, Veronese, Burne-Jones, Vallotton and others.
Huge clam shells were a common feature in paintings of the birth of Venus, and other classical myths. They also feature in many ‘vanitas’ paintings.
Titian died of the plague, and Austrian artists were badly affected by the influenza pandemic of 1918, losing both Klimt and Schiele.
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