Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Selene.
The gallery
Selene and Endymion
Nicolas Poussin, c. 1630
Poussin's Detroit canvas: the moon goddess descends in her chariot toward the sleeping shepherd — Selene's nightly love staged as cool classical theatre.
Selene and Endymion
Gerard de Lairesse, c. 1680
Lairesse's Rijksmuseum overmantel: Cupid's torch leads Selene to Endymion while the moon breaks through cloud — lunar desire painted for a royal bedchamber.
Selene and Endymion
Ubaldo Gandolfi, c. 1770
Bolognese Rococo: Selene leans from the night sky over the eternally sleeping youth — the moon's visit rendered as soft flesh and silver light.
Selene
Albert Aublet, 1880
Aublet's fin-de-siècle moon goddess — Selene alone as luminous nude against the dark, crescent and night condensed into one figure.
Endymion and Selene
Victor Florence Pollet, 1854
Pollet's academic nocturne: Selene arrives at the sleeping shepherd — nineteenth-century polish on the oldest lunar love story.
In play
Hades II
Supergiant Games
Supergiant brings Selene among the surface boons — the moon's silver light as a gift for Melinoë's night war.
Endymion
John Keats
Keats' long poem opens on Selene's sleeping shepherd — 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever' — the moon's love written as Romantic quest.