CREATION TO TRANSFORMATION TALK 2

ARTISTS' MYTHS AND DREAMS

Sat 12 Jul 2025, 11am–12pm
At the Museum and Online
Create and Transform season 2025 icon

This talk takes place in-person at the Museum in the Headley Lecture Theatre and via Zoom online

Tickets are £8 each. Book your ticket below

This talk is the second in a series of two on the subject of Creation to Transformation in art history

With Juliet Heslewood, art historian and author

Ovid’s remarkable writings ‘Metamorphosis’ are time-honoured, still popular myths from the ancient world. In his stories, the bad deserved punishment while the good were often turned into different states.

Artists have delighted in imagining these events such as the vanity of Narcissus painted by Pollaiuolo or Bernini’s breathtaking sculpture of Daphne being chased by Apollo – origins of natural phenomena. Much later the Surrealists found the analysis of dreams a suitable discipline to invite an exploration of the human psyche.

The subject of this 17th century oil painting is Ovid's Metamorphoses showing the god Narcissus looking into a pool at his own reflection in a romantic landscape, a hunting dog is by his side.

Echo and Narcissus, Pier Francesco Mola, 1633-1641, oil on canvas © Ashmolean Museum

This famous oil painting Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian depicts a mythological scene with several figures, including a partially clothed woman and men, surrounded by animals and trees under a blue sky, 1522–1523

Bacchus and Ariadne, Titian, 1520-3 © National Gallery

 

This is Juliet's second of two art history talks in the series The Creation to Transformation.

Her first talk is on 5 July on Artists and The Creation

Part of our Create & Transform season of events.

BOOKING

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.

Tickets are £8 each.

BOOK YOUR IN-PERSON TICKET     BOOK YOUR ONLINE TICKET

If you have any questions, please email us at publicprogrammes@ashmus.ox.ac.uk