#taltos

The Witching Hour

Painting: The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrant

Quote: "Applause rose all around her, and looking up she was amazed to see that they were all Dutchmen here, gathered at Leiden; even she wore the big black hat and the gorgeous thick sleeves, and this was a painting by Rembrandt, of course, The Anatomy Lesson, and that is why the body looked so perfectly neat, though it hardly explained why she could see through it."

Lasher

Painting: Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Federico da Montefeltro (San Bernardino Altarpiece) by Piero della Francesca

Quote:

Representations of healing, something like that beautiful painting by Rembrandt of the Anatomy Lesson. She opened her eyes with a start. No, they wouldn’t want to see that, nothing that terrible. Think of other things, the passive and beautiful faces of Piero Delia Francesca, the soft sweet eyes of Botticelli’s women, soothing fancies. Things that were better than real. She was so sleepy. She was trying to remember all the people in that big Medici painting in Florence, the one with Lorenzo looking out of the corner of his eye. She’d been five when Gifford took her to Europe the first time. “Mothers and babies!” she’d said as they went through the Palazzo Vecchio. She’d so loved to skip and twirl on the stone floors. She had never seen so many pictures of that one grand theme. Gifford had whispered sternly, “Madonna with Child.”

Note: In Lasher, Anne Rice references Salvador Mundi by Durer (which is my TVC set's Blackwood Farm cover), Botticelli, and the same Rembrandt again. I didn't want to repeat artists in these three covers, and I didn't want to use the same painting as I already used, so I was left with the above reference to Piero Delia Francesca, and found a Madonna with Child painting by him that is exhibited in Italy (not in Florence, but there's only so much I can do.) There is also a reference to an abstract painting by a Haitian artist, which I'd love to track down, but I wasn't able to find a real painting similar to the one she described.

Taltos

Painting: Primavera by Botticelli

Quote:

Rowan turned, staring back down the hall. The Three Graces, they were, against the dining room door, and Mona's face seemed to occupy two different places. This wasn't resemblance, it was duplication, and why did they stand so still, all of them in their cotton dresses, merely staring as if from a painting?