Category: mythology,
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01 Work, Interpretations of Olympian deities, THE ART OF WAR, Arturo Michelena’s Penthesilea, with footnotes #50
Penthesilea, daughter of Ares and Otrera, was an Amazon queen who fought and died in the Trojan War. After Hector, the leader of the Trojan army, was killed in the final year of the war, Penthesilea arrived with a small but highly skilled troop of Amazon warriors to help the doomed city against the Greeks.…
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01 Work, The art of War, Eliran Kantor’s Erebus, with Footnotes
In Greek mythology, Erebus is the personification of darkness. In Hesiod’s Theogony, he is the offspring of Chaos, and the father of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Nyx (Night); in other Greek cosmogonies, he is the father of Aether, Eros, and Metis, or the first ruler of the gods. In genealogies given by Roman authors,…
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01 Work, The art of War, Pieter Paul Rubens’ The Battle of the Amazons, with Footnotes
For sale for 36 000 € in Jan 2024 The tangle of naked bodies, some mutilated, gives the idea of the extreme violence used in battle and the terrified expressions of the horses are of rare intensity. Their anguished gazes are the most exciting moment of the spectacular composition. The author of this great work…
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1 Painting, The art of War, Tony Robert-Fleurys The Last Day of Corinth, with footnotes
In 146 BC, the Greek city of Corinth fell to Rome. Robert-Fleury depicts the moment when the Roman army enters the sacked city. The women of Corinth, fearing the fate reserved for them, took refuge at the foot of the statue of Athena. The work of the young artist, who took three years to complete…
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01 Painting, Peter Paul Rubens, Consequences of War, 1638-1639, with footnotes
Consequences of War, also known as Horror of war, serves as a commentary on a European continent ravaged by the Thirty Years’ War, and the artist employed numerous symbols, both contemporary and ancient, to deplore the state of the continent. Mars the Roman god of war charges with shield and sword as well as breastplate…
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06 Paintings, Olympian deities, William Etty’s Venus, with footnotes # 47
Venus is the Roman goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas… Please follow link for full post
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01 Painting, Olympian deities, Arthur Rackham’s Andromeda, with footnotes # 46
Sold for £88,500 in September 2022 Rackham has applied his unique imagery and style to the myth of Andromeda. The princess has been chained to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the sea monster, Cetus, sent by Poseidon as punishment for Andromeda’s mother’s claim to be of greater beauty than the sea dwelling Nereids. Andromeda…
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01 Painting, Olympian deities, North Italian School’s Pan and Syrinx, with footnotes # 45
In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous god Pan, she ran to a river’s edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs. In answer, she was transformed into hollow water reeds that made a haunting sound when the god’s frustrated…
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22 Works, The story of The world’s first supermodel, Phryne by Henryk Siemiradzki, Paul Delaroche, Ippolito Buzzi, Angelica Kauffmann, James McNeill Whistler, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jose Frappa, Franz von Stuck, Salvator Rosa, Joseph Mallord William Turner, and others, with footnotes
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01 Painting, Olympian deities, François Boucher’s Hunting nymphs, with footnotes # 44
Sold for 150,000 EUR in June 2017 These two attendants of Diana, isolated in their verdant forest with their hunting spoils at their side, occupy today the main subject of a painting, which was certainly part of an overdoor panel transformed into an easel painting during the early 19th century. The attribution to François Boucher is…
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02 Paintings, Irish deities, Henry Meynell Rheam’s La Belle Dame sans Merci (Banshee), with footnotes # 43
The subject is a fairy who seduces a knight with her eyes and singing voice, before lulling him to sleep and abandoning him on an empty hillside. The present watercolour depicts the moment when the fading knight dreams of the fairy he saw across the meadow, and his own initial approach to her on horseback……
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4 Works, Contemporary interpretations of Olympian Deities, Thomas Saliot’s Mermaids, with Footnotes #7
In Greek mythology, the Naiads are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in…
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15 Paintings, Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion, with footnotes #2
Artists include: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, French School, Charles Joseph Natoire, FRANCKEN, FRANS II, School of Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Giorgione, Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne and Carl von Marr. Please follow link for full post
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01 Work, Interpretations of Roman tradition, The Master of the Holy Blood’s Death of Lucretia, with footnotes #40
Sold for 5,000 GBP in April 2016 Lucretia, legendary heroine of ancient Rome. According to tradition, she was the beautiful and virtuous wife of the nobleman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. Her tragedy began when she was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrannical Etruscan king of Rome. After exacting an oath of vengeance against…
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01 Work, Contemporary Interpretations of Olympian deities, William Mortensen’s Venus and Vulcan, with footnotes #30
A uniquely funny and strange take on a standard from classical antiquity. Vucan is the god of fire and the forge. Here he is old and bent over, nearly crushed by the weight of his enormous box camera. He holds the hand of his cupid progeny. Cupid has a Leica strapped to his shoulder rather…
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11 Paintings, Olympian Myths as recounted by the Old Masters, with footnotes #8
The stories of the ancient Greeks about their gods, heroes, and explanations of the nature and history of the universe are known as Greek mythology. These stories, or myths, have survived for more than 2,000 years. Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the arts and literature of Western civilization, which inherited much of…
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68 Works and tales of Mermaids in Europe, Asia and Africa, with Footnotes #6
Artists: Charles Edouard Boutibonne, Edward Okun, Laura JamesDoris Prouty, Harald Oskar Sohlberg, Ralph Cahoon, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Arthur Wardle, Giovanni Segantini, Isobel Lilian Gloag, Edward Poynter, Edward Matthew Hale, Edvard Munch, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Aino, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Anton Teofil Kwiatkowski, Carl Bertling , Robert Anning Bell, William Arthur Breakspeare, Gerard de Lairesse, Howard Pyle, Julyan Davis, Albert Hanson,…
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03 Works, Interpretations of Olympian deities, Ellie Burelli’s Amazons, with footnotes #39
The legendary Amazons were thought to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern-day Turkey near the southern shore of the Black Sea. There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta… Please follow link for full post
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01 Work, Interpretations of Rome , Circle of Jacob de Backer’s Porcia, wife of Brutos, with footnotes #38
Sold for 12,500 GBP in December 2011 Porcia Catonis’ (c. 73 BC – June 43 BC), famous second marriage was to her first cousin, Marcus Junius Brutus, the close friend of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar who plotted his murder. Information about Porcia comes from ancient sources such as Plutarch, and most of it has a decidedly literary quality.…
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01 Work, Interpretations of Olympian deities, William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Bacchant, with footnotes #37
In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god’s retinue. Their name literally translates as “raving ones.” Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae or Bacchantes in Roman mythology, after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox-skin. Often…
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