Reni, in the Farnesina at Rome, not a great work, but an excellent illustration. Old Cosimo Roselli made the story the subject of some quaint and delightful panels in the Pitti Gallery, Florence. The monster dragging his long body towards the fainting maiden is like Carpaccio’s dragon in the story of St. George, a creature to produce delicious thrills of horror and amusement.
The tale of Europa’s elopement on the back of the bull is one we might not be keen about but for its beautiful rendering in Venetian art. Veronese’s opulent picture in the decorations of the Doge’s Palace is one to remember, and the fine work of Titian, admired by Rubens, is one of the chief treasures of Fenway Court, Boston. Other mythological pictures in which young people will find pleasure and profit are Curzon’s Psyche, bringing from Hades the casket of beauty to Venus, passing with bated breath the three-headed Cerberus (Louvre); Regnault’s Automedon with the Horses of Achilles; Watts’s Orpheus and Eurydice, full of tragic feeling; Atalanta’s Race, by Poynter, showing the fleet-footed maiden stooping as she runs to catch up the fatal ball; and Titian’s Three Graces. The Three Fates have been treated by several painters, and one can choose between the attractive modern pictures by Simmons and Thumann, or, if preferred, take the old Italian work once attributed to Michelangelo, representing the weird sisters as rather fearsome old women. Of kindred interest are the sibyls, so often referred to in classic literature and mythology. Among the series by
