Tag: Mythology

Head of Medusa (c.1613)

Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640) Head of Medusa c.1613 Oil on canvas, 68.5 × 118 × 2 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Perseus cunningly killed the snake-haired Medusa, who had petrified man and animal with her gaze (Ovid, Metamorphoses). The blood dripping from…

Bacchus (1638-1640)

Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640) Bacchus 1638–1640 Oil on canvas, 191 x 161.3 cm Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg Bacchanalia was a favourite theme in Rubens‘s work, although Bacchus himself was rarely the subject of his paintings. He saw the subject as reflecting…

Venus and Adonis (mid-1630s)

Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640) Venus and Adonis probably mid-1630s Oil on canvas, 197.5 x 242.9 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Rubens took the subject of this painting from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Accidently pricked by one of Cupid’s…

Cupid as Link Boy (1774)

Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792) Cupid as Link Boy 1774 Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo Joshua Reynolds’s portrait transforms a sight common to the streets of eighteenth-century London—a child worker lighting torches—into an allegory. “Link boys,”…

Mermaid (1896)

Munch, Edvard (1863-1944) Mermaid 1896 Oil on canvas, 100.3 × 552.5 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Apollo e Dafne (1741)

Tiepolo, Giambattista (1696-1770) Apollo e Dafne (Apollo and Daphne) 1741 Oil on canvas, 96 x 79 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris Compare: Tiepolo, Giambattista (1696-1770) Apollo insegue Dafne c.1755–1760 National Gallery of Art, Washington     See also: • Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD): The Metamorphoses (English)

Apollo insegue Dafne (c.1755-1760)

Tiepolo, Giambattista (1696-1770) Apollo insegue Dafne (Apollo Pursuing Daphne) c.1755–1760 Oil on canvas, 68.5 x 87 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington Throughout his career Tiepolo painted small pictures of mythological themes, which proved extremely popular. The subjects of these works…