Less than 30 lines of the book are devoted to the abduction of Europa, which has become its best-known and most-often painted story.
Titian
Rape, ejection from society, transformation into a bear, then into a constellation: poor Callisto, but some superb narrative paintings.
Who or what exactly is Cupid? How did a mischievous and rather obese infant come to represent love?
Salome has become a femme fatale, the author of John the Baptist’s death, and a potent erotic symbol. But that was not the original story.
His later paintings, after 1858, are quite different from those he made when a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. How?
Delacroix’s famous painting of Marianne, personification of the French nation, does not stand alone. Here is a small collection.
The advent of wet-in-wet, canvas supports, fewer layers, impasto, and visible brushstrokes.
An unusual and original portrait, originally part of an altarpiece. Bosch’s strange plants are starting to play a major role.
There have been four different readings of this well-known painting. Does any of them work, or should we look to a different account?
First of two parts looking at the many great paintings of Andromeda’s rescue from sacrifice to Cetus.
