Unicorns (Legend—Sea Calm)  1906

This is probably Davies’s most famous work. It recalls certain decorative paintings by Albert Pinkham Ryder as well as masterpieces of the early Italian Renaissance, Symbolist murals by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and even Chinese handscroll paintings. The standard mythological notion about unicorns—that they will approach only virgins—does not seem central to the painting,...