Abduction of Proserpina 3

Abduction of Proserpina 3The full composition of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Abduction of Proserpina (Ratto di Proserpina, 16211622). The young Bernini only 23 when he completed it compressed an entire scene of violence, terror and motion into a single spiralling block of white marble, now displayed at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The subject is the abduction of Proserpina (Persephone in Greek mythology) by Pluto, god of the underworld. Proserpina twists backward, her body

heralds and thieves

and from their earliest appearances in archaic sculpture they are shown as three nude female figures linked in an arm-in-arm group

A black and white photograph of the tiered steps of an ancient Greek theatre

and printmaker whose experimental colour plates anticipated the decorative print culture of the 18th century

He was the patron deity of sailors and fishermen

When Castor was killed

atop the hill it names

personifications and minor gods were produced in volume

the great frontier wall across Britain that bears his name

Expression became more legible (the furrowed brow of Laocoön

shield and spear

Apollo was one of the most painted deities in Roman domestic art