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Reading visual art: 116 Wicker basket A
Before everything turned plastic, we carried things around in baskets made from roughly woven materials derived from a range of dried plants, such as reed and willow: wicker or wickerwork baskets....
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Reading visual art: 117 Wicker basket B
In the first of these two articles looking at the roles of wicker baskets in paintings, I concentrated on narrative works, and introduced their use to carry meals, and in gathering food such as fruit....
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Paintings of Mary Magdalene: Gospel times
The stories of three women dominate Christian religious art: the Virgin Mary, Eve, and Mary Magdalene. This weekend I look at paintings of the last of those, the other Mary, and the stories they tell....
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Paintings of Mary Magdalene: Penitent and legendary
In the first of these two articles considering paintings of Mary Magdalene, I showed a small selection of those depicting her in events that occurred during times covered by the Gospels, up to the Noli...
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Changing Paintings: 9 The abduction of Europa
After Mercury had turned Aglauros into stone for her obstruction and festering jealousy of her sister Herse, he flew back up to join Jupiter in the heavens, who instructed him to drive a herd of cattle...
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Reading visual art: 118 The box, Pandora
There’s just one frequently painted story that’s centred on a box, and is famous enough to have entered English and other languages: the myth of Pandora’s box. However, as far as paintings are...
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Changing Paintings: 10 Cadmus and the founding of Thebes
Having left the reader with Europa being abducted by the white bull that is Jupiter, when Ovid opens Book 3 of his Metamorphoses he just mentions in passing that the pair travelled to the island of...
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Reading visual art: 120 Rainbows narrative
Rainbows are among the most beautiful and ephemeral of atmospheric optical effects, and haven’t escaped the attention of painters. In this and the next article I look at their reading in two genres,...
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Gambling in paint: Vice
For some, gambling is a vice and a quick way to perdition; for others it’s their main social activity and favourite entertainment. Many nations and societies have tried to ban it: it was illegal in the...
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Gambling in paint: Virtue
Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, gambling had generally been depicted in painting as sinful, a step on the road to damnation, vulnerable to cheats and crooks, the preserve of the...
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Changing Paintings: 11 Actaeon changed into a stag
In his Metamorphoses, Ovid starts his summary of the Theban cycle by telling the legend of how the city of Thebes came to be founded by Cadmus with five men who sprung from dragon’s teeth. That leads...
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Changing Paintings: 12 Death of Semele and Jupiter’s surrogate pregnancy
Following the story of Actaeon’s tragic death while out hunting, Ovid continues his short summary of the myths of the Theban cycle with that of Semele, daughter of Cadmus the founder of the city of...
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Reading visual art: 124 Frogs and toads in myth
Frogs and toads are small and humble creatures, hardly attractive themes for the artist. They’ve had their moments in paint though, through several myths and folk tales, in particular. In this and...
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Reading visual art: 125 Frogs in other stories
The first of these two articles considered the classical myth of Latona, who transformed the obstructive Lycians into frogs, and the sorceress Medea, who was accompanied by toads. Today I look for...
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Changing Paintings: 13 Echo and Narcissus
After Ovid has described the tragic deaths of Actaeon and Semele, and briefly mentioned the remarkable circumstances of the birth of Bacchus, he takes a break from the Theban cycle for the popular myth...
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Reading visual art: 126 Snail
While the humble garden snail is common throughout Europe, it’s quite unusual in paintings and easily overlooked in their reading. Where they do occur, they add the detail of authenticity, and often...
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The Truthful Vision of Jean-Léon Gérôme 1
Our view of art in the nineteenth century has been carefully crafted to lead us to think that visual art was dominated by the Impressionist movement as a precursor to modernist painting in the...
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Reading visual art: 127 Mouse
The bad new for mice is that cats, their traditional foes, feature far more often in paintings. Mice, being more inconspicuous, seldom earn their place in the foreground. This article looks at some of...
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Helen of Troy: victim or villain? 1
Helen was one of the most prominent women in classical legends of the Mediterranean civilisations. Daughter of the King of Sparta, she was abducted by Theseus when still a child, rescued by her twin...
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Helen of Troy: victim or villain? 2
In the first of these two articles looking at the legendarily beautiful Helen, I had started to consider paintings of her abduction from her husband Menelaos, King of Sparta, by Paris Prince of Troy,...
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