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#War And Conflict

Divine and heroic warfare, strife, vengeance.

A dark, teeming Mannerist canvas of the defeated Titans hurled from the sky. From a luminous break in the storm-clouds at the top, a mass of muscular nude figures tumbles headlong and foreshortened into the depths, limbs flailing and faces contorted in terror. They pile into a heap of straining bodies across the foreground, ruddy and pale flesh tangled together; one massive figure sprawls face-up at the centre, mouth open in a scream, his hair standing on end. At the lower left a standing youth grips a burning torch while a black hound's fanged head snarls beside him, and a few small butterflies and insects — the painter's emblems of the fleeting — rest on the fallen limbs.
Greek

The Titanomachy

For ten years the sky itself hung in the balance, until Zeus loosed the hundred-armed prisoners of the deep and the world caught fire.

8 minHesiod
A grey-bearded, muscular sea-god shown half-length and nude to the waist, a grey-green drape at his hips, gripping a three-pronged trident in his right hand. Behind his shoulder a ship's spar wound with rope and a carved trident emblem sit against a dark wooden ground, with the incised inscription "A·DORIA" at upper left.
Greek

Poseidon, Lord of the Sea

He drew the grey sea by lot and never forgave a slight, splitting rock with his trident to raise storms, drown heroes and shake the earth itself.

5 minHesiod
Marble statue of Hera as queen, standing veiled in a long chiton and himation with a diadem band across her brow, her raised right hand holding a sceptre and her extended left hand bearing a shallow offering dish.
Greek

Hera, Queen of Olympus

The goddess of marriage who ruled beside Zeus and warred against him in the same breath, dressing for seduction as a strategy of state.

6 minHomer
The birth of Minerva. High on the clouds of Olympus the newborn goddess strides out full-grown in a golden plumed helmet, a levelled spear in one hand and a round shield at the other, her violet and grey mantle streaming behind her. Below reclines Jupiter in rose drapery with his eagle at his feet; at his side a muscular bearded god raises the double axe that has just split the god's skull, while Mercury, a trident-bearing Neptune and other Olympians look on from the surrounding clouds.
Greek

Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and War

She was born from her father's skull in full armour, spear already levelled, and the whole of Olympus reeled at the sight of a daughter equal to Zeus.

5 minHesiod