Entanglements

Peter Paul Rubens
Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Paris Bordone
Jupiter and Io
ca. 1550
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Lennart af Petersens
Detail of ivory Salt Cellar
made in Augsburg by Georg Petel
1948
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Théodore Géricault
Two Figures
before 1824
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Anonymous German Artist
Hercules and the Nemean Lion
ca. 1700
ivory
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous German Artist
St Margaret and the Dragon
ca. 1400-1450
hand-colored woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gustaf Magnusson
Decorative Cluster of Musical Instruments
ca. 1920
tempera on paper
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Braun, Clément & Cie.
La Marseillaise
ca. 1880
photogravure
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Giulio Romano
Taking of Christ
before 1546
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Gérard Edelinck after Peter Paul Rubens
The Battle of Anghiari
(based on lost fresco cartoon of Leonardo da Vinci)
ca. 1680
engraving
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous German Artist
Job afflicted with Boils
ca. 1480-1500
hand-colored woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous German Artist
Conversion of St Paul
ca. 1550-1600
oil on copper
Národní Galerie, Prague

Jacques-Louis David
Le Serment du Jeu de Paume
ca. 1791-93
oil on canvas (unfinished)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Hans Baldung
Hercules and Antaeus
1531
oil on panel
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Paul Jamin
Abducting a Woman in the Stone Age
1888
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Luca Giordano
Youth Tempted by the Vices
1664
oil on canvas
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Kalasiris paused for a moment until he had achieved the exalted state of mind appropriate to the contemplation of holy mysteries.  Then he said: "Knemon, when gods and spirits descend to earth or ascend from earth, they very occasionally assume the form of an animal, but generally they take on human shape: the resemblance to ourselves makes their theophany more accessible to us.  They might pass unperceived by the uninitiated, but they cannot avoid recognition by the wise, who will know them firstly by their eyes, which have an extraordinary intensity and never blink, but more especially by their method of locomotion, which is not accomplished by the displacement or transposition of their feet, but by a sort of smooth, gliding motion and without touching the ground, so that they cleave rather than walk through the circumambient air.  This is why the Egyptians make their statues of the gods with the two feet connected and carved virtually as one form.  Homer was well aware of this too, for he was an Egyptian and well versed in our holy lore.  So he included enigmatic references to these phenomena in his epics, leaving their discovery to those who were capable of interpreting them.  Thus of Athena he says, 'Her eyes were terribly shining,' and of Poseidon, 'I knew easily as he went away the form of his feet, the legs' form from behind him,' as if he is gliding along: that is the meaning of 'easily as he went away,' although some misconstrue the sentence and interpret 'I knew easily.'"

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)