Perseus und Andromeda. details

A damsel in distress if ever the was one! The woman (Andromeda) is chained at wrist and ankle to a rock in the sea, and a viscious sea-monster is about to swaller her up. But look! The helmeted and sandal-footed Perseus is flying to rescue her, swinging his sword at the monster!

Picture by Paul Veronese, about whom Joshua Reynolds said, “Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian schools, seem to have painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and expertness in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art which, as I before observed, the higher style requires its followers to conceal.” [Seven Discourses On Art, No. 6, Dec. 10, 1771]