Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Apollo Killing the Cyclops
I like a bit of comedy when I visit an art museum. Such as this picture, one of four frescoes at the National Gallery in London, Domenichino's "Apollo Killing the Cyclops," with a dwarf in the corner peaking out from behind a painted curtain, as if the fresco were a painting of a tapestry:
Or Jan van Huysum's "Flowers in a Terracotta Vase," with its wonderful detail of a fly so realistic that one could think it was a real fly that had landed on the painting:
It's down on the pedestal of the vase, slightly left of center. Here's a closeup of it:
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2 comments:
Good trompe d'oeil is impressive. The ceiling at the Ionic Temple on Rievaulx Terrace in North Yorkshire has a painted cieling (it's near here). For a moment it's hard to tell if the figures around the edge of it are plaster statues or paintings.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/rievaulx-terrace/
Another painting in this playful vein, Gremlin in the Studio II, by Marting Johnson Heade...
http://www.thewadsworth.org/hudson-river-school/?nggpage=2
In my hometown museum the Wadsworth Atheneum.
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