Leda and The Swan Painting History

Leda and the Swan da Vinci  –  Michelangelo   – Veronesse.  –  Rubens. –  Boucher  – Delacroix     is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, or Jupiter, in the Roman version, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda,  the daughter of the King of Aetolia, and married to the Spartan King Tyndareus. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and …

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Venus Anadyomene

Venus Anadyomene or “Venus rising from the sea” Venus Anadyomene Is an iconographic representation of the goddess Aphrodite coming out of the sea made famous by the painter Apelles. The original representation of Apelles disappeared, but it is described in Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, where it is mentioned as an anecdote that the painter used Campaspe, Alexander the Great’s concubine, as his model. According to Athenaeus, the idea of Venus rising from the sea was inspired by Phryne, who during the …

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