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Changing Paintings: 22 Proserpine’s fate
Minerva is with the nine Muses on Helicon, where she has just been told the story of their contest with the Pierides, and the Muses offer to repeat the stories that Calliope had sung so successfully in...
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Reading visual art: 136 Elephant
Of all the animals exotic to Europe, the elephant must have the longest and most distinguished history, including its depiction in paintings. Although the African elephant is now only found in...
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Heroines 3: The anger of Achilles and the faithfulness of Briseis
Homer opens the Iliad not with lines about Helen, Paris or the war against Troy, but telling of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus: The wrath of Peleus’ son, the direful spring Of all the Grecian...
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Heroines 4: Phaedra’s shame and a chariot accident
The Paris Salon of 1880 was the largest ever held, with well over seven thousand works on display. Despite modern impressions it included an eclectic selection, with paintings by Manet, Monet and...
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Changing Paintings: 23 Arethusa, Lyncus and the magpies
Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, has just finished telling the long and harrowing story of the rape of Proserpine. She moves on to conclude with two shorter stories, the first about Arethusa who had...
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Reading visual art: 137 Helmet
Helmets have long been worn by warriors to protect the head, one of the most vulnerable parts of the body in combat. They have come to symbolise the warrior, and by extension those of the gods involved...
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Changing Paintings: 24 Arachne’s fate
Ovid ended Book 5 of his Metamorphoses with the Muses telling Minerva stories. Book 6 opens with a story centred on Minerva that’s unique in its detail to Ovid, and is peculiarly relevant to his later...
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Reading visual art: 138 Halo
While angel’s wings have a long pre-Christian history in the visual art of Mediterranean cultures, haloes were little-seen until the time of the early Christian church. Haloes have also appeared in...
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Heroines 5: Paris’s jilted lover
When the Titanic sank on 15 April 1912, two close associates of President Taft died: Archibald Butt, the President’s military aide, and Francis Davis Millet, a journalist and painter. They’re now...
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Heroines 6: Jason’s first abandoned wife
At first sight, Jason, of Golden Fleece fame, comes across as one of the better heroes of classical myth. Compared with multiple murderer, rapist, and utterly untrustworthy partner Theseus, or...
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Changing Paintings: 25 The slaughter of Niobe’s children
After he told the story of Arachne being turned into a spider for her pride, Ovid turns to Niobe, who had known Arachne in the past. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, a son of Jupiter, had married well, to...
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Reading visual art: 139 Ferry
Before the nineteenth century, many river and sea crossings had to be made by ferry, and that’s reflected in paintings. The best-known in mythology is the crossing made by the dead into the Underworld,...
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Changing Paintings: 26 Latona and the Lycian peasants
For Ovid’s next myth about the lesser-known goddess Latona, he steps back in time to when her twins, Apollo and Diana, were born, in a story about divine retribution of a less savage kind. Long ago in...
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Reading visual art: 140 Goose
Described in a masterful understatement as being “among the most aggressive of all poultry”, geese can be fearsome birds. They were first domesticated in Europe several millennia ago, and since then...
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Changing Paintings: 27 The music contest
Following the relatively light relief of the tale of Lycian peasants turned into frogs, Ovid’s Metamorphoses briefly covers the horrific story of Marsyas, adding an odd intercalation about Pelops. Ovid...
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Commemorating 100 years since the death of Henrietta Ward, Victorian history...
A century ago yesterday, on the 12 July 1924, one of the few highly successful women painters of Britain died: Henrietta Mary Ada Ward. Although almost forgotten today, and barred from joining the...
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Changing Paintings: 28 Philomela’s revenge
Ovid’s last substantial story in Book 6 of his Metamorphoses continues the gory trend of the slaughter of the Niobids and the flaying of Marsyas, in one of his grimmest stories of rape and its...
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Reading visual art: 141 Swan
If you find geese daunting, then what about swans? Although usually seen as graceful if not regal, fully grown adults can weight over 15 kg (33 pounds), and can put up a real fight. They feature in one...
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Changing Paintings: 29 Boreas and Orithyia
Following Ovid’s long account of the grim story of the rape and mutilation of Philomela, he brings Book 6 of his Metamorphoses to its end on a lighter note, forming a bridge to the opening theme for...
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Reading visual art: 142 Apes and monkeys, narrative
Monkeys and apes are some of the oldest motifs in European painting, and have been significant features in every century’s art since the 1400s. Until little more than a century ago, though, they were...
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