Mythological Subjects - Elizabeth McGrath

Achilles to the Graces

KORTE INHOUD

One remarkable feature of European culture as it developed in the Renaissance was the accommodation it made with ancient paganism. The classical gods and their legends were allegorised, transformed into symbolic figures or emblematic scenes that might accord with Christian morality. At the same time a secular space was created in art for the depiction of the most popular myths, above all the love stories recounted by the ancient poets. These stories were not only attractive in themselves; they offered the opportunity to depict nude figures in narrative action, which the example of antiquity held forth as the highest goal for painting. Rubens was one of the greatest creators of classical allegory; he was also a supreme interpreter of the classical stories. No painter was so at home in the literature of the Greeks and Romans. When he painted for pleasure, which, increasingly in the course of his life, he felt able to do, he used pagan myth to express and celebrate themes of love, beauty and the creative forces ...
2016Taal: Engelszie alle details...

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2016Uitgever: Harvey Miller Publishers944 paginasTaal: EngelsISBN-10: 0905203674ISBN-13: 9780905203676

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