Referencing Art History


Botticelli's Venus, Donatello's David,

and David Jones


As many of the essays in this issue show, David Jones references cultural, literary and art historical resources from throughout western civilization. The comparisons below show how Jones uses two iconic art works as a method of portraying his own, personal mythological view of the world. Jones's goddess in Aphrodite in Aulis is, as he has stated, a compendium of many goddesses, but offers suggestions of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. And his soldiers, one from Aphrodite... and the other from the frontispiece to In Parenthesis, echo Donatello's David. Jones's work is rich with exploring a sense of continuity within artistic traditions.

Click the image detail for
Aphrodite in Aulis and In Parenthesis
for fuller views of those works.

Detail from Aphrodite in Aulis, 1941

 

Detail from Botticelli's
The Birth of Venus, c. 1485-87




Above:
detail of soldier from
Aphrodite in Aulis, 1941


Right:
Statue of David
by Donatello
bronze, c. 1440s

Above:
detail of soldier from the
frontispiece to In Parenthesis



David Jones images are ©Estate of David Jones