i will hug him and love him

public domain

Abbesses used at times to live by different ideas of the vow of poverty. And with that I introduce to you this vignette painted among many others upon the ceiling of a private room belonging to the Abbess of San Paolo. The convent is in Parma, Italy, and a hometown boy did the work in 1519: Correggio (1489-1534).

Look at that dog getting hugged all over by that little boy. The dog is clearly thinking "Aah I want to go quit loving me so much." Since the goddess of the hunt, Diana, appears elsewhere in the room, it may well be that the dog is afire to go upon the chase. And it is this vivid expressiveness, as well as a bravura ability with perspective and foreshortening, which earned him his place as one of the more forward-looking Mannerist (late Renaissance) artists.

Want to see what the whole ceiling looks like? (The dog is at right, around the middle)