#fluid drapery

[mythologypaintings]

Britomartis

Artist: George Frederic Watts (British, 1817–1904)

Date: 1877-1878

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Birmingham Museums Trust, London, United Kingdom

Description

Britomartis was a Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete. She was sometimes believed to be an oread, a mountain nymph, but she was often conflated or syncretized with Artemis and Aphaea, the “invisible” patroness of Aegina. She is also known as Dictynna or as a daughter of Dictynna.

In the 16th century, the naming of a character identified with English military prowess as “Britomart” in Edmund Spenser’s knightly epic The Faerie Queene led to a number of appearances by “Britomart” figures in British art and literature.

[allegorypaintings]

The Sense of Sight

Artist: Annie Louisa Swynnerton (British, 1844–1933)

Date: 1895

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Description

The senses were a favorite subject for 17th century artists, represented in a fairly literal manner. Following this tradition, Swynnerton's angel, who appears on earth, relies on her sight to find heaven. The subject of the 'Sense of Sight', an angel overwhelmed at the wonder of what they can see, perhaps relates to the importance of sight to an artist and the joy of the visual work. Her rapturous expression suggests not merely sight but also a spiritual vision and the realistic painting of flesh and face contrast with the figure's spirituality.

[artemlegere]

The Blessed Damozel

Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English, 1828–1882)

Date: 1871-1878

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Description

Rossetti was a poet as well as an artist. His poem “The Blessed Damozel” was first composed in 1847, when he was nineteen, and he continued to revise it until just before his death. William Graham, one of the artist’s most faithful patrons, commissioned a painting of its subject in 1871. The poem uses archaic language to describe the damozel, or damsel, leaning out of heaven — “the rampart of God’s house”— to behold her earthbound lover. The painting takes the form of a Renaissance altarpiece, with the damozel as a surrogate for the Virgin Mary. Graham, an avid collector of early Renaissance paintings, suggested that he add the predella (the panel or step traditionally found below the main part of an altarpiece) with the reclining lover in a terrestrial landscape. The two-part frame, designed by the artist, emphasizes the separation between heaven and earth — the “gold bar” described in the poem.