Here it is folks! The Friday afternoon DU challenge.

[CTyankee]

A famous Elizabethan poet had something in common with this painting and it’s not just the century. Who is the poet and what did he and this painting have in common?

Extra credit: name the artist and the title of this painting.

[JuniperLea]

1. I dunno... but one of those dolphins just ate Cthulhu!!

Those are some damn evil looking dolphins! Sheesh!

[damntexdem]

2. Poor Cthulhu!

I mean, why settle for the lesser of two evils? ;-)

[CTyankee]

3. I didn't see them up close til I read your post...those teeth!

Things have changed in our image of dolphins over several centuries, haven't they?

[JuniperLea]

Flipper would never bare teeth like that!

I think of dolphins as water-bound humans... or dogs... but then I generally treat dogs like humans... 'cept for that bowl of food on the floor and do you stuff outside deal:)

[CTyankee]

15. No "Sea World" in the 16th century!

Hey, so Raphael didn't know about Flipper, what's the big deal...

Isn't it interesting how perceptions change over time?

[JuniperLea]

16. It's not just the dolphins... the women...

Chubby is beautiful!

[CTyankee]

17. Raphael loved women. He painted them lovingly.

The exact title of the work is "The Triumph of Galatea." Women were heroic, beautiful and I think he actually worshipped their beauty and talent...do a little study of him and you'll see what I mean...

[JuniperLea]

18. I'm familiar...

And I agree with him:)

Women were chosen to bear fruit for humanity... women are worshiped in many religions even today... women are wicked cool;) If I do say so myself!

I used to go by "Inanna" in the InterTubes... she is Diana, Isis, and many others... I wonder how it is society fell away from that wisdom? :D

[marions ghost]

4. Galatea by Raphael

Galatea, c. 1512-14 by Raphael, Villa Farnesina, Rome.

"As subject he (Raphael) chose a verse from a poem by the Florentine Angelo Poliziano which had also helped to inspire Botticelli's Birth of Venus. These lines describe how the clumsy giant Polyphemus sings a love song to the fair sea-nymph Galatea and how she rides across the waves in a chariot drawn by two dolphins, laughing at his uncouth song, while the gay company of other sea-gods and nymphs is milling round her."

Gosh my art history degree is good for something....
;)

[Duer 157099]

6. Indeed! Nicely done.

All I could think of was Botticelli's Birth of Venus but obviously it wasn't it, but it reminded me of that.

:thumbsup:

[CTyankee]

10. Not really done yet...the poet was wrong...

[marions ghost]

57. thanx Duer (numbers)

well I think you're doing well to know it was NOT Birth of Venus...probably only .000005% of the population would know that.

One time I won a T-shirt--no kidding, in a bookstore. The owner said, whoever can guess where I stole this light bulb gets a free T-shirt! (It was only a single light bulb, with the store logo on the shirt). Several customers came and looked. I said, "Picasso's Guernica" immediately and the guy got all bug-eyed hysterical. He never thought anybody would EVER guess...

So maybe we need another art history challenge? ;-)

[CTyankee]

71. DUer Catshrink used to have a "sig line" of Picasso's dog, Lump.

When I commented on it, she responded that no one else on DU had guessed it. I explained that I had just visited the Picasso museum in Barcelona where I saw it. I loved that museum and did one of my first DU Friday challenges on a couple of the images...

I have another challenge next week...I hope you can participate...it will be just art history, no English lit involved...I think you'll like it...

[marions ghost]

72. OK I'll look for it next week...

hope I can make it in the right timeframe--there's some serious competition out there in DU land. The English lit element did make it severely hard, but it did get solved, so there ya go.

You're lucky to have been to Barcelona --I hope to get there one day...

Yeah Lump. I see there's a whole cult of Lump :D Re. Google Images

[CTyankee]

76. Be advised that Barcelona is pretty crowded. I think it just got to be the IN touristy spot.

However, the art is certainly worth it...but I liked Madrid better...

[CTyankee]

7. The work and artist are correct. But the poet is not Poliziano.

Read the key word in the question...

[marions ghost]

9. Cervantes?

:shrug:

[CTyankee]

11. read question carefully for telling word...

[marions ghost]

14. thinking....

:think:

[malaise]

24. Excellent

:applause:

[marions ghost]

51. thanks malaise

whew, makes me think there's a whole lotta esoteric art images still etched in my brain... ( :D

Now I'll go head to head with anyone on Greek and Roman temple plan identification. Not the pictures, JUST the floor plans, OK? (God that was the hardest class....)!

[elleng]

73. Oh MY! What WAS the class?

Oh, I SEE, Art History major! You teach???

[marions ghost]

74. Greek & Roman Architecture

The professor had studied all the temple sites over there, including the small very obscure ones. There was much student wailing and gnashing because she expected everyone to become an expert on the most subtle details. Matching temple floor plans with their facades was a favorite challenge--vicious;)-- they were so much alike. Temples & floor plans give me the willies to this day.

No I don't teach. Did some at university level at the time of the degree and would have liked to continue, but being a late boomer, jobs in the field were ridiculously few and usually in Timbuktu. This was the late 80's to 90's. No I have left it for slightly more practical pursuits. I wish I could have stayed with it. But I try not to live with regrets. You can't do everything you want in this life. Anybody who's doing anything in the arts in this severe recession now, should be aware how much of a luxury that is. We didn't know how good we had it in the 80's. Coming thru the 90's, when Helms & Co. made art into a pursuit of "elitist" fops and perverts...well the arts have never really recovered.

I consider these a Dark Ages for the visual arts in America. Music, performance are a bit better off because that is seen as entertainment. Visual art is seen as either wall decoration or as a selfish narcissistic activity by the general population, and the study of art history about as useful as Latin. It is now up to the universities and museums to keep it alive, along with a some patrons who recognize its value. Maybe "slow viewing" will come back into style in America like "slow food" someday...

No need to reply...I'm just rambling. :)

[elleng]

75. So glad we took our daughters to museums (and churches!) in Europe.

NOW they're happy to tell me of excursions to Guggenheim, MOMA, etc.

[marions ghost]

77. The interest has to be encouraged...

so many people think they have to have all sorts of knowledge to appreciate visual art, but I tell them all they really need is eyes (and a little imagination). There is something for everybody in any museum or gallery. You don't have to like it all. Just be open to it. Visual art, even the most abstract, is wordless communication of ideas and feelings. Career artists are people who want to help viewers to see and feel and imagine, to expand their minds. It's not only a selfish pursuit.

:thumbsup: & :applause: for Art Appreciators

[SidDithers]

5. Got it...

Sala di Galatea :hi:

Edit: should have posted more quickly
Well done marion's ghost :applause:

Poem was La Giostra by Angelo Poliziano

Sid

[CTyankee]

8. No, Go back and read the question again...

[SidDithers]

12. Ahhh, I'm only good at finding the painting...

thanks for another good challenge :)

Sid

[CTyankee]

13. It helps to have a Liberal Studies background...you have all kinds of new discoveries.

This one I didn't encounter until recently...

[Crystal Clarity]

20. Shakespeare

seems too obvious based on your Q and I have no idea what if any connection there might be but just throwing it out there...

[CTyankee]

23. Not Shakespeare but we are getting somewhere with the era...

[marions ghost]

50. thanks

meet you on the next art history challenge!

[marions ghost]

19. Arthur Golding

and they have Ovid in common?

Maybe I'm making this too hard?:7

Sometimes I'm a little too tangential.....

[CTyankee]

21. No not Golding. It IS hard.

you are somewhat on track with Ovid but obviously since he was a Roman poet....no...

[marions ghost]

22. LOL

thanks for the clue...

[CTyankee]

25. I know I kinda made this one harder...it's great that you are playing and trying.

And it's funny how cultures overlap as it did with this painting and the Elizabethan poet...

[Crystal Clarity]

26. Christopher Marlow

was another Elizabethan poet/playwrite but again just throwing it out as another ridiculously wild guess.

[CTyankee]

28. No, sorry...

[Duer 157099]

27. Elizabethan... Sir Walter Raleigh?

Now I'm just throwing darts

[CTyankee]

29. Another dart and you will have it...

[Duer 157099]

30. I think I'm out of darts arrrrgh

These sure are fun! :thumbsup:

They put the TGIF in DU

[Duer 157099]

32. My last dart - Christopher Marlowe n/t

oops, I see upthread that somebody already threw this dart.

:runs to dartboard to retrieve dart for another try:

[CTyankee]

31. CLUE: think LOVE...

[WCGreen]

33. I think it's Girls and Satyrs Gone Wild, Mediterranean Addition...

[CTyankee]

36. Pretty much describes High Renaissance art in so many ways, WC.

You hit THAT nail on the head...

[WCGreen]

47. Why thank you...

I wish I knew more about western cultural history...

It should be highlighted more than it is. Most of what I know is just from personal exploration of art and literature and music. They actually made fun of these types of study back in college when I was pursuing an Accounting Degree...

[CTyankee]

64. You should read Thomas Cahill's "Mysteries of the Middle Ages."

It's probably in the library...he has a big following...gives you SO many insights and not dry at all...it's actually FUN to read...

I loved it and I'm one of those geek types about literature and art...but you'll get SO much out of it. He's a great writer and I have read several of his books. "Sailing the Wine Dark Sea" was about Greek culture and really broke it down for me...wonderful...

[Canuckistanian]

34. I'm going to get my wife to answer this

She's an art history major and wicked smart. Stay tuned.

[CTyankee]

35. art history helps. English literature helps too. Just sayin'.

[1monster]

66. Long shot: Sir Philip Sidney

[marions ghost]

37. John Lyly?

Galatea and Midas are two of John Lyly's most engaging plays. Shortly after his early success with Campaspe and Sappho and Phao in 1583-4, he took up the story of two young women, Galatea (or Gallathea) and Phillida who are dressed up in male clothes by their fathers so that they can avoid the requirement of the god Neptune that every year "the fairest and chastest virgin in all the country" be sacrificed to a sea-monster.

This is HARD, CTyankee :)

[CTyankee]

39. Wow, had no idea about Lyly. That's interesting...

but the poet is far more famous than Lyly. He is read in English lit today, absolutely essential for any student of Elizabethan poets. While his work does not directly reference this painting, there is one telling WORD that applies to both, unerringly. There was obvious cultural cross currents at play here...makes an interesting art/literature comparison study venture...

[elleng]

38. Edmund Spenser - Sonnet 75

http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/poem/es.html

Just trying, late in this exercise. Mood not correct, tho, imo.

Another, Blithe Spring, Dekker

http://www.poetry-archive.com/d/here_lies_the_blithe_spring.html

[CTyankee]

40. Ellen, congrats! You have the poet. But...but...but...the word that connects his poetry and this

painting? Go back to your art history terms...it has to do with "Love".

[Duer 157099]

41. Amoretti? (nevermind)

arrgh

[CTyankee]

44. YOU ARE CORRECT!

Amoretti is the Italian word for “cupids.” They are shown in this work and is the title of Edmund Spenser’s collection of love sonnets to his second wife in 1595. The painting, entitled “The Triumph of Galatea” and dated 1511, is by Raphael. Art historians often refer to these Cupids as amoretti. In English literature of the 16th century “amoretti” means “little love poems.”

How did you put this together?

[elleng]

48. Nice, all those little love poems!

Danke, grazie, merci!

[CTyankee]

52. AW, that's so sweet...Spenser wrote them late in life to his second wife.

He died a few years after...hope he had a love match with her...sounds passionate!

[Duer 157099]

55. Like I said, throwing darts

:D

But really, these are so much fun! It's been decades since I studied art history and it reminds me of how much I enjoyed it way back then, before I got diverted into science.

:thumbsup:

[elleng]

42. Numero Uno?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061106173850AA2VE4J

[marions ghost]

43. Cupid

n/t

[CTyankee]

45. Yep, Cupids are also referred to as amoretti and Spenser wrote a bunch of poems

entitled "Amoretti" which in literary terms means "little love poems."

[marions ghost]

46. oops posted same time

as you, CTyankee
:banghead:

hey, thanks for a good challenge!
mg

[Crystal Clarity]

49. Congratulations!!!

I'm bummed though. I love the Renaissance period and thought for once I might have a chance. Not so however...
Sir Philip Sidney was going to be my next wild guess. Would have been wrong again. Oh well.

:toast: to you elleng!!! And to you too CTYankee!

[elleng]

54. Can't really take credit!

Y'all, me with 'words and phrases legal research,' and google!

Me, I'm an 'Emily' girl! Going next week:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052601899.html

[CTyankee]

59. Please, please a complete report!

I'm an Emily girl myself...

I live in possibilty...

[elleng]

65. I will certainly report back, yank!

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors -

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

[CTyankee]

68. Possibly one of her greatest poems...don't you think?

I love the reference of the gambrel roofs, a new architectural idea, in her time to describe her world vision. And then, we get right back to her "spreading wide" her narrow hands to "gather Paradise." What a wonderful expression of vision...

[Crystal Clarity]

60. That sounds like a great thing to do!!!

Enjoy! :-)

[CTyankee]

56. I DID make this a hard one. And it does require a knowledge base that encompasses

both art and literature...but so many themes in art do!

I have found late Renaissance or High renaissance to be so different from early Renaissance and I must say I like early better! I find it has more balance and harmony while High Renaissance has disequalibreum and disorder until it falls over into Mannerism, somewhat of a horror to me.

Next week will be fun, too. Be sure to tune in...

[marions ghost]

61. OH we WILL!

:applause: CTyankee

[marions ghost]

62. OH we WILL...!

:applause: CTyankee

[Crystal Clarity]

63. Will do

and I look forward to it!

[elleng]

67. Save me a space!

I'll be in NYC!

[CTyankee]

69. Just check in if you have a chance!

Hope so!

[elleng]

70. Will try!

Expect to be in Bronx with Emily, in garden, daytime.

A BIRD came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,—
They looked like frightened beads, I thought
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.


PS, I've been walking around neighborhood pond evenings, hanging with ducks, geese and swans!

[Berserker]

53. I am sure the title was

teabagging a dolphin. Next question.

[CTyankee]

58. Hey, given the Renaissance sexual conduct, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

I think they even had an artist called "Il Sodomo". Wonder what that was all about...