Thinking about this weekend’s forthcoming annual revelry of romance, I went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery website to find out if there are any pictures I could take my beloved along to see.
There’s a great resource on the Gallery website which allows visitors to search the impressive collection of master paintings. Sometimes I go and have a play with the search box when I’m looking for inspiration. It’s a great tool – available online here.
I searched for the word ‘valentine’, but nothing came up. So I tried ‘romance’, ‘passion’ and ‘love’. What did I get?
Sorry there were no results matching your search for “love”. Please try again.
No results in my search for love? I didn’t realise it was that kind of website!
(And as it happens, my search for love has been perfectly successful without the aid of DPG – happy valentine’s day dear, by the way.)
In fact, it turns out that there aren’t that many loved up pictures in the collection at all. Most of the scenes showing tender moments of love are either mother-and-child (plenty of Venuses and Cupids) or are of lovers who really don’t look like they’re that bothered about each other.
This is the Saracen sorceress Armida with the Christian warrior Rinaldo, sleeping. In fact, she’s enchanted him and sent him off into a slumber so that she can get in there and kill him. But notice how her hand has just been stayed by love at the last minute. Ah bless. What romance. It’s by Nicholas Poussin and dates to 1628-30.
And here’s one of my favourite paintings in the DPG collection, the wonderfully macabre Judd Marriage. I never get sick of looking at it when it’s on display. We don’t know who painted it, but they certainly had a great take on the institution of marriage. In the middle of the picture, just beneath the happy couple’s hands, joined atop a human skull, we can read:
THE WORDE OF GOD HATH KNIT US TWAYNE
AND DEATH SHALL US DIVIDE AGAYNE
Across the bottom the inscription directly beneath the corpse reads: ‘Lyve to dye and dye to live, eternally’. And not content with just this, the piece seems to be entitled We Behold our End.
Now that’s romance on your wedding day, isn’t it?!
Happy Valentines from Dulwich OnView. I hope you find something cheerier for your loved one!
Images: with thanks to Dulwich Picture Gallery.
