Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640) The Four Rivers of Paradise c.1615 Oil on canvas, 208 × 283 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna According to the conventional interpretation, the four continents are depicted here as female allegoric figures paired with the gods of their…
Tintoretto, Jacopo (1518-1594) Susanna e i vecchioni (Susanna and the Elders) c.1555–1556 Oil on canvas, 146 × 193.6 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna In the Old Testament, it is told how Susanna receives lewd proposals from two men who have secretly intruded…
Tiziano (c.1488-1576) Bacco e Arianna (Bacchus and Ariadne) 1520–1523 Oil on canvas, 176.5 x 191 cm National Gallery, London Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne is one of the finest and most famous paintings in the National Gallery. The Cretan princess Ariadne has…
Delacroix, Eugène (1798-1863) Mort de Sardanapale (Death of Sardanapalus) 1827 Oil on canvas, 392 cm × 496 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris “The rebels besieged him in his palace… Lying on a superb bed, at the top of an immense pyre,…
Gentileschi, Orazio (1563-1639) Danae e la pioggia d’oro (Danae and the Shower of Gold) 1621–1623 Oil on canvas, 161.5 × 227.1 cm Getty Center, Los Angeles This painting is part of a series of works executed by Gentileschi in 1622 for…
Gentileschi, Orazio (1563-1639) Danae c.1623 Oil on canvas, 162 x 228.5 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland The gauzy scarf draped over Danaë was a studio prop present in many of Orazio‘s paintings. Danaë’s father feared a prophecy that his grandson…
David, Jacques-Louis (1748-1825) Cupidon et Psyché (Cupid and Psyche) 1817 Oil on canvas, 184.2 x 241.6 cm Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Jacques-Louis David included two butterflies in this painting: one above the slumbering Psyche and the other on the base…
Whistler, James Abbott McNeill (1834-1903) Three Figures: Pink and Grey 1868–1878 Oil on canvas, 139.1 x 185.4 cm Tate Britain, London This picture derives from one of six oil sketches that Whistler produced in 1868 as part of a plan for…
Pollock, Jackson (1912-1956) Naked Man with Knife c.1938–1940 Oil on canvas, 134.7 x 99 x 6.5 cm Tate Britain, London Pollock was beginning to find his own individual style when he made this work. The startlingly violent image of three interlocking…
Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775-1851) Mars and Venus, after Guercino 1802 Graphite on paper, 12.8 × 11.4 cm Tate Britain, London Compare: Guercino (1591-1666) Venere, Marte e Amore 1633 Galleria Estense, Modena