AMAZING PAINTINGS (PART I)

French painter François Boucher (1703–1770)

Leda and the Swan (1741)

English painter George Romney (1734-1802)

Lady Hamilton as Circe (1782)

English painter Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919)

Cassandra (1898)

French painter Théodore Chassériau (1819- 1856)

Andromeda and the Nereids (1840)

Italian painter Jacopo Tintoretto (real name Jacopo Comin) (1518-1594)

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British painter John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)

Circe the Sorceress (1911)

French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1767-1824)

Mademoiselle Lange as Danae (1799)

British painter John Byam Shaw (1872-1919)

Diana hunting (1901)

British painter Wright Barker (1864-1941)

Circe

Here Circe is more the queen of her idyllic paradise, where she lived in peace with her wild animals. She’s half naked and has a lyre in one hand. So she’s probably receiving Odysseus, who came to rescue his men.

British painter Charles Napier Kennedy (1852-1898)

Andromeda

British painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)

Pandora (1879)

German painter Franz von Stuck (1863-1928)

Tilla Durieux as Circe (ca. 1913)

Circe was the daughter of Helios. Sometimes she’s called a goddess, sometimes a nymph or a sorceress. But it’s clear that her power was more witchcraft than divine. She lived in a great mansion in a forest on the island of Aeaea together with a lot of wild animals like lions and wolves.

Odysseus sent some m of his crew ashore on that island to search water and food. Maybe they slaughtered some of Circes beloved animals. Finally the men discovered the palace of Circe and were invited by her to have wine and food. Because the wine was poisoned all the men but one were transformed into swine, which signifies that they behaved like this before.

The only one who had escaped went back to the ship to warn the others who had stayed behind. When Odysseus went to Circe’s palace to rescue his men, he was intercepted by the god Hermes, who gave him a magic herb to protect himself from Circe's potion. So with the help and the advices of Hermes Odysseus not only achieved to rescue his men, furthermore he became the lover of Circe and stayed for one year with Circe on that island. Later she helped him to reach his home.

In the iconography of art Circe is sometimes a kind of nature goddess, who wants to protect her animals from the wild intruders. But most times she has the part of the seductive witch. Where Eva is offering the fateful apple, Circe has her potion.

It’s clear that with the beginning of women emancipation that last part was the more interesting as it can be seen on this painting by Franz Stuck. Here we have a modern aggressive women who affronts her adversary.

Diane (1899)

Helen (1881)

Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. As the daughter of Leda and her divine father she became the most beautiful (human) woman of the world. Hardly surprising that many kings and princes wanted to marry her, and she chose Menelaus the mighty king of Sparta.
The problems began when the goddess Aphrodite promised Paris a prince from Troy the love of the most beautiful of all women and helped him to take Helen away with him. As anybody knows was this was the cause of the Trojan war. Apart from that is not clear, if Helen followed Paris willingly or if she was taken by force, if she really loved Paris or if she was only a vain and selfish woman.
When the Greeks finally conquered and destroyed the city Menelaus wanted to kill his unfaithful wife, but seeing her beauty (she dropped her robe) he forgave her and took her as his queen back to Sparta.

It seems that artists were not very interested in Helen as a person. She appears more as the prize, the big trophy, that for the best champions of the world battled for years. She was as Christopher Marlowe said: "the face that launched a thousand ships."

On this painting by Edward Poynter she looks a little disturbed while Troy is burning down.

French painter Baron Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833)