Picture from Carbon Print by Braun, Clément & Co.
John Andrew & Son. Sc.
FLORA
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The graceful pose of the head, inclined to one side, suggests the soft languor of a southern temperament. It was often adopted by Titian, and we see another instance in the attitude of the Venus. We fancy that the painters liked particularly the long curve thus obtained along the neck and shoulder. The angle made on the other side between head and shoulder is filled in with the falling hair.
The title of Flora is given to the picture after the fashion of Titian’s time for drawing subjects from mythology. The revival of classic learning had opened to Italian art a delightful new field of illustration. We see how Titian took advantage of it in such pictures as Medea and Venus. In England the love of the classics was seen in the poetry which took much the same place there that painting held in Italy. Flora was the ancient goddess of flowers and is made much of in Elizabethan verse. [28] Some pretty lines by Richard Carlton describe