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Pandora Crowned by the Seasons

Artist: William Etty (English, 1787-1849)

Date: 1824

Medium: Oil painting

Collection: Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham, England

Rinaldo and Armida

Artist: Attributed to Gregorio Lazzarini (Italian, 1655-1730)

Date: c. 1690

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Description

Armida is the fictional character of a Saracen sorceress, created by the Italian late Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso.

In Tasso's epic Jerusalem Delivered, Rinaldo is a fierce and determined warrior who is also honorable and handsome. Armida has been sent to stop the Christians from completing their mission and is about to murder the sleeping soldier, but instead she falls in love. She creates an enchanted garden where she holds him a lovesick prisoner. Eventually Charles and Ubaldo, two of his fellow Crusaders, find him and hold a shield to his face, so he can see his image and remember who he is. Rinaldo barely can resist Armida's pleadings, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the close of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise to be her champion, prevents her from giving way to her suicidal impulses and offers to restore her to her lost throne. She gives in at this and like the other Saracen woman, Clorinda, earlier in the piece, becomes a Christian and his "handmaid".

The Call of Perseus

Artist: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (English, 1833-1898)

Date: 1877

Medium: Mixed media on paper

Collection: Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton, United Kingdom

Description

Perseus has rashly promised to bring the head of the Gorgon Medusa as a gift to the King of Seriphos. Medusa has poisonous snakes instead of hair and any mortal who looks upon her face is turned to stone. On the left we first see Perseus in despair at this impossible task being visited by the goddess Athena. On the right Athena is revealed, offering help by handing Perseus a sword and a mirror which will allow him to safely look at Medusa.

The Sacrifice of Polyxena

Artist: Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690)

Date: 1647

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Description

As recounted by the ancient Roman poet Ovid, a compliant Polyxena is led to her death at a sacrificial altar to appease the ghost of the war hero Achilles. Le Brun painted this work the year after his return to Paris from studying in Rome and just a year prior to the founding of the French Royal Academy, which he would soon head. It captures the highbrow artistic ideals of seventeenth-century French academic painting: beautifully choreographed compositions that relay their narrative through a series of intense facial expressions and dramatic bodily gestures.