Contesa Tra Achille Ed Agamennone 

Editor: Here we have Giovanni Battista Gaulli’s, “Contesa Tra Achille Ed Agamennone”, or “Quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon”. It’s a wonderfully busy oil painting portraying this very dramatic moment from Greek Mythology. It’s pretty bombastic. What do you make of this work? Curator: Bombastic indeed! This is pure Baroque drama – a real feast for the eyes! All of these grand gestures. It's interesting that Gaulli’s decided to put this celestial machinery above the central figures of Achilles and Agamemnon. Are these flying figures gods, perhaps influencing the action? Editor: Possibly? They add a kind of otherworldly layer to an already intense scene, I think. Curator: Exactly! And there's also that tension – a controlled explosion, shall we say – held in check by academic sensibilities. But even through that, this captures a feeling, doesn't it? It has a sense of human experience as filtered through myth. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about conflict itself – the kind that feels as ancient as time. Editor: It really does. Seeing it described like this is starting to resonate. Thanks for sharing these insights. Curator: It’s my pleasure! Looking closer can take us closer – perhaps to a flicker of our very selves.