Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the steps of identifying a mythological subject, in order.
- Locate the episode in Ovid or another source
- Identify the deities by their attributes
- Ask what the patron was claiming by choosing it
- Identify the episode from the combination of figures present
- Describe the figures, objects and setting
Hints
- Identification of the gods precedes identification of the episode.
- The question about the patron comes last.
Show the answer
- Describe the figures, objects and setting
- Identify the deities by their attributes
- Identify the episode from the combination of figures present
- Locate the episode in Ovid or another source
- Ask what the patron was claiming by choosing it
Why
The third step is where the work is: a Venus alone is a subject, and a Venus with Mars and a net is an episode. Once the episode is fixed, the source usually follows immediately, and only then is it worth asking what commissioning that particular story was meant to say.
Practise Greco-Roman Sources I: the Gods and Their Texts
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Greco-Roman Sources I: the Gods and Their Texts
- Why do Renaissance mythological paintings use Roman rather than Greek names for the gods?
- Which are reasons patrons commissioned mythological subjects?
- Sort each attribute by the deity it identifies.
- The Ovide moralisé read the Metamorphoses as Christian allegory.
- How many books does Ovid's Metamorphoses contain?
- Complete the account of the classical sources.
- Match each classical text to what painters took from it.
- Renaissance patrons commissioned depictions of pagan deities without compromising their Christian faith.…
- Homer reached most Renaissance painters directly in the original Greek.