Confrontation

Ludovico Mazzolino
Doubting Thomas
ca. 1520
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Roman Empire
Centaur battling Wild Beasts
AD 120-130
mosaic
Altes Museum, Berlin

Jean-Baptiste Stouf
Hercules battling Centaurs
ca. 1785
terracotta statuette
Detroit Institute of Arts

Louis de Silvestre
Centaurs hunting Leopard
ca. 1730
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery
1532
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Lucas Cranach the Younger
Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery
ca. 1540
oil on panel
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Jean-Jacques Hauer
Murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday
1794
oil on canvas
Musée Lambinet, Versailles

Cristoforo Roncalli (il Pomarancio)
The Expulsion from Paradise
ca. 1590
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Camillo Boccaccino
Prophet Isaiah admonishing King David
ca. 1529-30
drawing
(study for painting)
Morgan Library, New York

Francesco Allegrini
Equestrian Battle
ca. 1650
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Eugène Delacroix
Mephistofeles appearing before Faust
ca. 1824-28
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
Goddess Hecate battling Giant
175-150 BC
marble
(detail of Pergamon Altar Frieze, east side)
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Félix Vallotton
Perseus slaying the Monster
1910
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

René-Antoine Houasse
Joshua battling the Amalekites
ca. 1690
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Jean-Paul Laurens
Pope Stephen VI prosecuting the Corpse of Pope Formosus
(the so-called Cadaver Synod of 897)
1870
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

El Greco
Christ driving the Money-changers from the Temple
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Frick Collection, New York

Chorus:

For me, since the gods brought compulsion

around my city – they took me from my father's house

into a life of slavery – 

it is proper to approve what my rulers do,

be it right or wrong, regardless of my own thoughts,

mastering my bitter loathing:

but chilled by hidden grief

I weep beneath my garments

for the senseless sufferings of my masters. 

Electra:

Servant women who keep the house in good order, since you are here to escort me in this act of supplication, please be my counsellors in that matter: what should I say as I pour these drink-offerings of mourning?  How can I speak sensibly?  How will I pray to my father?  Should I say that I am bringing them from a loving wife to a dear husband – when they come from my mother?  Or should I say it this way, as is the custom among mankind, that he should repay with blessings those who sent him these honours – truly the repayment their crimes deserve?  Or should I pour them out in silence – a mark of dishonour, just as my father perished dishonourably – for the earth to drink up, and go, like someone getting rid of the vessel used in a purification ritual,* throwing the jar away behind me without turning my eyes?  I don't have the courage for that,** and can't think what to say when I pour this thick-flowing offering at my father's tomb.  Please, my friends, share the responsibility for this decision; for we cherish the same enmity within our home.  Don't hide your thoughts within your heart for fear of anyone: the same fate lies in store for the free man as for him who is enslaved to the hand of another.  Please speak, if you have any better ideas than what I have said. 

– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*this refers to an Athenian custom – when they purified a house with an earthenware censer, they threw the pot away at a crossroads and withdrew without looking back

**not so much because it would anger Clytemnestra in the unlikely event of her getting to know about it, as because it might anger Agamemnon if he misunderstood Electra's contempt for the offerings as contempt for himself