A nymph is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are typically tied to a specific place or landform, and are usually depicted as maidens. They were immortal like other goddesses, except for the Hamadryads, whose lives were bound to a specific tree.
In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx was an Arcadian nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Being pursued by Pan, she fled into the river Ladon, and at her own request was metamorphosed into a reed from which Pan then made his panpipes.
In Greek mythology, Procris was an Athenian princess, the third daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. Homer mentions her in the Odyssey as one of the many dead spirits Odysseus saw in the Underworld. Sophocles wrote a tragedy called Procris that has been lost, as has a version contained in the Greek Cycle, but at least six different accounts of her story still exist.
The Lapiths were a group of legendary people in Greek mythology, who lived in Thessaly in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion. They were believed to have descended from the mythical Lapithes, brother of Centaurus, with the two heroes giving their names to the races of the Lapiths and the Centaurs respectively. The Lapiths are best known for their involvement in the Centauromachy, a mythical fight that broke out between them and the Centaurs during Pirithous and Hippodamia's wedding.
Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.
Piero di Cosimo, also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.
Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus.
Jupiter and Io is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio around 1530. It now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.
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".
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Four Last Songs cycle is made up of four songs: "Procris", "Tired", "Hands, Eyes, and Heart", and "Menelaus". All of the songs were composed between 1954 and 1958. The cycle is best suited for mezzo-soprano, although, the original program note from the cycle's 1959 premiere acknowledges that all of the songs may be sung by a baritone, except for "Hands, Eyes, and Heart", "which is a woman's song." It is suggested that the four songs were originally intended to be two separate song cycles with "Menelaus" and "Procris" belonging to one cycle and "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" belonging to another. However, there is debate in the scholarly community about this proposed song cycle grouping. Renée Chérie Clark in her essay, "A Critical Appraisal of Four Last Songs" suggests, citing a letter from the composer to a friend at Cornell University, that Vaughan Williams actually intended for "Menelaus" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" to be grouped together. The composer's death in 1958 left both cycles unfinished, and in 1960, they were assembled by the composer's widow, Ursula Vaughan Williams, and published as set by Oxford University Press. The texts of all four songs are poems written by Vaughan Williams' wife Ursula who penned several books of poetry throughout her lifetime as well as a biography of her late husband. "Procris" and "Menelaus" deal with figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and epic poetry while "Tired" and "Hands, Eyes, and Heart" depict images of love between a husband and wife.
Venus and Adonis is a painting by the Italian late Mannerist artist Paolo Veronese, executed in the early 1580s, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid.
In Greek and Roman mythology, Aura is a minor wind goddess, whose name means "breeze". The plural form, Aurae is sometimes found to describe a group of breeze nymphs. According to the late antiquity writer Nonnus, Aura is the daughter of the Titan Lelantos and the mother, by Dionysus, of Iacchus, a minor deity connected with the Eleusinian mysteries, while Quintus Smyrnaeus makes the Aurae daughters of Boreas, the god of the north wind. Aurae was the title of a play by the Athenian comic poet Metagenes, who was contemporary with Aristophanes, Phrynichus, and Plato.
Venus and Mars is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs.
Perseus Freeing Andromeda or Liberation of Andromeda is a painting created by Piero di Cosimo, during the Italian Renaissance. The painting was praised by critics and art historians for its aesthetic, cosmological and political implications. The painting is a recreation of the myth of Perseus, the demi-god, who slays the sea monster and saves the beautiful Andromeda. The painting is based on a story created by the ancient Roman writer Ovid, in the Metamorphoses. The themes of the painting include platonic love, ideal beauty, marriage, and natural beauty. The painting includes portraits of the Medici family and many of Florentine's elite upper ruling class as characters in the story of Perseus Freeing Andromeda. The painting also represents a paragone between painting and sculpture. The painting resides in the Uffizi in Florence.
Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
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 Pardo Venus is a painting by the Venetian artist Titian, completed in 1551 and now in the Louvre Museum. It is also known as Jupiter and Antiope, since it seems to show the story of Jupiter and Antiope from Book VI of the Metamorphoses. It is Titian's largest mythological painting, and was the first major mythological painting produced by the artist for Philip II of Spain. It was long kept in the Royal Palace of El Pardo near Madrid, hence its usual name; whether Venus is actually represented is uncertain. It later belonged to the English and French royal collections.
Leda and the Swan is an oil on canvas painting from 1530–31 by the Italian painter Correggio, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. It shows three scenes of Leda's seduction by Jupiter who has taken the form of a swan. Their first meeting is shown on the right hand side and their lovemaking in the centre, where Leda sits with the swan between her thighs, guiding him with her left hand. They are accompanied to their left by Cupid with his bow and two cupids with flutes. The third scene is the swan flying away whilst Leda gets dressed. Leda and the Swan was a common subject in 16th-century art.
The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus is a painting by Piero di Cosimo from c. 1499. It depicts the god Bacchus and the discovery of honey, as described in the ancient Roman poem Fasti by Ovid. It is in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Diana and Callisto is an oil-on-canvas painting by Flemish painter Paul Bril. Probably painted in the early 1620s, it was acquired by the National Gallery, London, in 1924.
