Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.
Arachne is the protagonist of a tale in Greek mythology known primarily from the version told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), which is the earliest extant source for the story. In Book Six of his epic poem Metamorphoses, Ovid recounts how the talented mortal Arachne, daughter of Idmon, challenged Minerva, goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest. When Minerva could find no flaws in the tapestry Arachne had woven for the contest, the goddess became enraged and beat the girl with her shuttle. After Arachne hanged herself out of shame, she was transformed into a spider. The myth both provides an aetiology of spiders' web-spinning abilities and was a cautionary tale about hubris.
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the Baroque period. He began to paint in a precise tenebrist style, later developing a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family and commoners, culminating in his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting, due to the way its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and the uncertain relationship it creates between the viewer and the figures depicted.
The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo was a Spanish Baroque portrait and landscape painter, the most distinguished of the followers of his father-in-law Velázquez, whose style he imitated more closely than did any other artist. A fine painter himself, Mazo was a master of landscape, as proven by his most celebrated work View of Saragossa.
Las Hilanderas is a painting by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, Spain. It is also known by the title The Fable of Arachne. It is usually regarded as a late work by the artist, dating from around 1657.
The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".
The Venetian painter Titian and his workshop made at least six versions of the same composition showing Danaë, painted between about 1544 and the 1560s. The scene is based on the mythological princess Danaë, as – very briefly – recounted by the Roman poet Ovid, and at greater length by Boccaccio. She was isolated in a bronze tower following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father. Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus, who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to seduce her in the form of a shower of gold.
Las Meninas is a series of 58 paintings that Pablo Picasso painted in 1957 by performing a comprehensive analysis, reinterpreting and recreating several times Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. The suite is fully preserved at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, it is known that he sold the first and second interpretations of the meninas to the American art collector Peggy Guggenheim, owner of the Art of this century gallery. This is a very extensive survey work which consists of 45 versions of the original picture, nine scenes of a dove, three landscapes and a portrait of Jacqueline.
The Bacchanal of the Andrians or The Andrians is an oil painting by Titian. It is signed "TICIANUS F.[aciebat]" and is dated to 1523–1526.
Venus with a Mirror is a painting by Titian, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and it is considered to be one of the collection's highlights.
Metamorphoses (Transformations) is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising fifteen books and over 250 myths, the poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple genre classification by its use of varying themes and tones.
The Feast of Venus is an oil on canvas painting by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, created in 1635–1636, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is a fanciful depiction of the Roman festival Veneralia celebrated in honor of Venus Verticordia.
The Rape of Europa is a painting by the Venetian artist Titian, painted ca. 1560–1562. It is in the permanent collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts. The oil-on-canvas painting measures 178 by 205 centimetres.
The Rape of Europa is a 1628-29 oil on canvas painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Prado Museum, in Madrid. It is a copy of a 1562 work on the same subject by Titian.
Perseus and Andromeda is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian, now in the Wallace Collection in London. It was painted in 1554–1556 as part of a series of mythological paintings called "poesie" ("poetry") intended for King Philip II of Spain. The paintings took subjects from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, in this case Book IV, lines 663–752, and all featured female nudes.
Apollo as Victor over Pan, also known as Apollo's Victory over Marsyas, Tmolus declaring Apollo winner in musical competition with Pan and Apollo and Pan, is a 1637 oil-on-canvas painting by Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer Jacob Jordaens.
The Spanish royal collection of art was almost entirely built up by the monarchs of the Habsburg family who ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, and then the Bourbons. They included a number of kings with a serious interest in the arts, who were patrons of a series of major artists: Charles V and Philip II were patrons of Titian, Philip IV appointed Velázquez as court painter, and Goya had a similar role at the court of Charles IV.
In Greek mythology, Phalanx is a minor Attic figure, who features in a lesser-known narrative of the myth of Arachne, the girl who enraged the goddess Athena by boasting of being a better weaver than her and was thus transformed into a spider by Athena. In this version of the story, Phalanx is Arachne's brother, and they are both punished by the goddess when they break a societal taboo.
