Classical Mythology in European Art

Excellent three-week course from the National Gallery looking at the Greek and Roman myths and how they inspired the artists of the Renaissance.

Led by Richard Stemp the sessions were wonderful story-telling sessions illustrated by wonderful pictures. The first session focused on the gods and goddesses which a good romp through them based on Raphael’s “The Council of the Gods” 1518 for the Villa Fernesina.  It was a clever idea to take one picture as a guide which he kept returning to.

Week two looked at heroes and humans, often the children of illicit relationships between a god and a human. We worked through Hercules and his labours as well as Perseus and Odysseus and their journeys. We spent some time looking at Luca Giordano’s “Perseus Turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone” from the 1680s and how it fits into the story of Perseus.

Finally in week three we pulled the previous two sessions together to look at why the stories appealed in the Renaissance and they often became an allegory for Christian meanings. In the second half we looked in detail at the story of Psyche and Cupid which brought us back to the Raphael work from the first week which is part of a decorative scheme showing their wedding.

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