Roman Poets: Ovid
Stories from Greek mythology that Ovid incorporated into his Metamorphoses have inspired painters through the ages. This is a collection of 15 masterpieces from Medieval/Renaissance and later painters, one for each book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The basic theme of the Metamorphoses is that everything changes. Some of these mythological stories show creatures changing species or gender. There are great tragic love affairs and horrible betrayals of the closest and most innocent family members. In the beginning, the world was created from an immense formless mass, the first metamorphosis. Gradually, the changes Ovid describes move from the world of the gods to the world of humans, although the gods are still there, around the edges, and the human Julius Caesar is deified. In the final book, the philosopher Pythagoras gives some non-mythic explanations for metamorphoses.
Greek Mythology Picture Gallery
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IApollo Chasing Daphne, by Gianbattista Tiepolo.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IIEuropa carried off by Jupiter in the form of a white bull.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IIIPublic Domain. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IVThisbe, by John William Waterhouse 1909.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VRape of Persephone, by Luca Giordano. 1684-1686.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VIThe Spinners, by Diego Velázquez 1644-1648.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VIIJason and Medea, by Gustave Moreau (1865).
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book VIIIJupiter and Mercury in the house of Philemon and Baucis, Adam Elsheimer, c1608, Dresden.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book IXAbduction of Deianira, by Guido Reni, 1620-21.
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XRembrandt - Rape of Ganymede
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XIHalcyone, by Herbert James Draper (1915).
- Ovid's Metamorphoses Book XIIBattle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, by Piero di Cosimo (1500-1515).
- Graphic Index
- Text Index
