The image above is Solitude by Frederic Leighton and I find it to be a comforting image. It grabs me. Leighton wrote about it to his sister, saying “the vehemence of winter has scooped and worn pools so deep that . . . you come at last to absolute dark brown night . . . no sound, no faintest gurgle even…
-
-
Upcoming Exhibit: A Victorian Obsession
Leighton House Museum has announced an upcoming exhibit: A Victorian Obsession (November 2014 – March 2015), which will present fifty exceptional and rarely exhibited paintings by leading Victorian artists including Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Edward Burne Jones and Lord Leighton himself amongst others. The collection which belong to Mexican collector Juan Antonio Pérez Simón, has never…
-
Katabasis: Descend into Hell
After my recent post on Dante’s Divine Comedy, I’ve been thinking about metaphorical descents into the Underworld. The rather beautiful Greek word for descent is katabasis, usually used to describe a hero’s journey into the underworld on a quest of some sort. It’s a journey seen in not only a variety of myths, but multiple cultures and religions. In reading…
-
Sorrow and Sunflowers
Clytie was a beautiful water nymph who loved the sun god Apollo (Helios). Apollo, however, didn’t return her love. The rejected Clytie could not move on and her love for Apollo grew into an obsession. She remained in one spot, staring at the sun as her unrequited love guided it across the sky each day in his chariot. Never eating…
-
Demeter and Persephone
In De Morgan’s painting, we see Demeter as she mourns the loss of her daughter. Stricken with grief, she clasps her head–surrounded by shafts of wheat, denoting Demeter’s role as goddess of the harvest. The tale of Demeter and Persephone personifies the depth of a mother’s love. It is a myth about the death and rebirth of vegetation, but it…
