Sculpture; Equestrian statues; Metalwork; Portraits; Men; Emperors; Rulers; Upper class; People associated with politics & government; People associated with military activities; Military officers; Military personnel; Clothing & dress;...
“Detail from a bronze equestrian statue of the emperor Domitian, which was raised from the sea floor near Miseno. After the emperor’s violent death and the subsequent declaration of a damnatio memoriae – the abolition of his memory – the...
“In various letters and diary notes the artist has explained how the preoccupation with ethnological problems, with the symbolism of colors, and certain literary concepts participated in the genesis of this canvas: ‘I painted the nude of a...
“The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in the 70s AD on the site of the lake of Nero’s Domus Aurea, and was financed from the spoils of the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70. It was dedicated in AD 80 by Titus, after his father’s death.” (p.192)
“The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in the 70s AD on the site of the lake of Nero’s Domus Aurea, and was financed from the spoils of the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70. It was dedicated in AD 80 by Titus, after his father’s death.” (p.192)
“The following year, the heroes of the day were children. David was asked to paint Joseph Bara, the drummer who chose to die rather than shout ‘Vive le roi!’, and the young Provençal Agricol Viala. Of these two projects, one unfinished...
“The following year, the heroes of the day were children. David was asked to paint Joseph Bara, the drummer who chose to die rather than shout ‘Vive le roi!’, and the young Provençal Agricol Viala. Of these two projects, one unfinished...
Sculpture; Heads (Anatomy); Portraits; Emperors; Rulers; People associated with politics & government; Men; Hairstyles; Crowns; Headdresses; Headgear; Leaves; Symbols
"[…] this portrait probably came from the forum's Augusteum (a shrine dedicated to the imperial family). […] In this portrait, the hair is combed forward, with short bangs over the forehead, formed by straight and regularly laid locks that...
"[...] with the stucco decoration restored from the existing remains and from Renaissance drawings." (caption, p.194); “The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in the 70s AD on the site of the lake of Nero’s Domus Aurea, and was financed...
"Dali and Gala had every reason to be grateful to America, which had showered them with dollars. Here, as Columbus, the painter kneels on the shore, holding aloft a silver crucifix. Gala appears once more as Virgin Mary, on the banner."...
Sculpture; Photographs; Mixed media; Allusions; Symbols; Hair; Body parts; Animals
"In the decade before her premature death in 1996, Chadwick developed an iconography which has links with the thought of Georges Bataille […] In Nostalgie de la Boue (1990) two rounded cibachrome transparencies were hung one above the other....
"In the year before Pollock's premature death, Krasner made powerful collages, possibly drawing on the huge semi-abstract 'paper-cuts' that the veteran French Modernist Henri Matisse was producing around this time. In one of these collages she...
Paintings; Oil paintings; Civil wars; War; Politics & government; Political issues; Dictators; Nazis; Fascism; Civilization; Bombings; Military tactics; War destruction & pillage; Death; Dismemberment; Body parts; Mental states; Despair;...
"In this monumental work of 1937, Guernica, Picasso combined Analytic and Synthetic Cubist forms with several traditional motifs, juxtaposing them in a new Surrealist way. The combination serves the political message of the painting - namely,...
Sculpture; Mixed media; Puns (Visual works); Sex; Couples; Relations between the sexes; Human body; Body parts; Anatomy; Genitals; Pails; Containers; Fruit; Melons; Food; Citrus fruit; Oranges; Cucumbers; Vegetables
"Lucas grew up in a working-class environment in East London and uses its idioms in her work. To some extent she has also borrowed from the American art that she saw in the late 1980s in London's Saatchi Gallery. Her 'grungy' abject imagery...
"Mosaic from the Augustan era that decorated the open triclinium of domus I, 5, 2; it is an allegory of the fleeting nature of earthly pleasures and of the leveling power of death. Below the skull, a butterfly and a wheel evoke the soul and...
"Sometime around 530 BCE a young man named Kroisos died a hero's death in battle, and his grave at Anavysos, not far from Athens, was marked by a kouros statue. The inscribed base invites visitors to 'stay and mourn at the tomb of dead...
"The painting anthologizes Dali's obsessions of the moment." (Caption); "As a result of Santos Torroella's dedicated researches, it is now generally accepted that the two heads in The Birth of Venus represent those of Lorca [Federico...
Prints; Screen prints; Allusions; Death; Disasters; Tragedies; Accidents; Automobiles; Vehicles; Dead persons; Wounds & injuries; Voyeurism; Social aspects; Social classes
"The use of serial repetition here, as in other early Warhol works, relates interestingly to Minimalist uses of repetition. The reciprocally ironic relation between Warhol and the Minimalists came to a head in 1964. Warhol exhibited a series...
Sculpture; Portraits; Men; Emperors; Rulers; People associated with politics & government; Military officers; Military personnel; People associated with military activities; Gestures; Clothing & dress; Hairstyles; Military uniforms;...
"This armored statue was discovered in the ancient city of Gabii. […] The portrait of Trajan, set on a modern neck, did not belong to the statue; it was furnished in 1793 by Vincenzo Pacetti, who produced this reconstituted piece for the...
"This painting deliberately combines a host of allusions to Spanish culture such as the stark black/white contrasts of Goya, Velasquez, and Picasso, the Spanish poet Lorca's lament to a dead bullfighter, 'Llanto por Ignacio Jánchez mejías',...
