#winged figure

Collection: Liechtenstein. The Princely Collections, Vienna, Austria

In Greek mythology Icarus follows a son of the craftsman Daedalus, who is imprisoned in Crete. To escape, Daedalus builds wings of feathers and wax for both of them, instructing Icarus not to fly too close to the sun. Ignoring this advice, Icarus flies too high, the wax melts, and he plunges to his death in the sea.

Winged Figure (1913) by Frederick Andrew Bosley (American, 1881 – 1942), oil on canvas, 36 x 35 inches, Vose Galleries of Boston

Venus at a Mirror follows the tradition of idealized female figures in art, with Rubens drawing inspiration from both classical mythology and contemporary aesthetics. As a renowned humanist scholar, he was deeply influenced by ancient Greek and Roman art. Here, Rubens presents Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in a private moment of contemplation.

Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, United States

A winged genius embodies "vanitas," the reminder of the transience of all earthly things. Before him, objects are arranged in Baroque still-life style, suggesting the rapid passage of time, the futility of power, and the fleeting nature of life's pleasures. The tabletop bears the inscription "nil omne" (everything is futile). References to the House of Habsburg, such as the portrait cameo of Charles V in the genius's left hand, suggest a court commission.

Collection: North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, United States

Midsummer Night or Iris is a study in iridescence, the effect of light the artist loved best. He loved to experiment with prisms to catch the effect of seeing colored light, and used such effects in this series of pictures. His daughter, Elaine, wrote, ‘My father was always fascinated by colour-iridescence. He would study the prismatic range in the beveled mirrors of candelabra; and if we children found in the big garden a bit of old glass, oxidized by age and weather, we would proudly take it to him, to add to his collection a box which lay open on a table beside his easel (Quoted in J. Sellars, ed., Atkinson Grimshaw. Painter of Moonlight, exh. cat., Harrogate, Mercer Art Gallery, 2011, p. 64).