Ovid and ArtThe art of the Renaissance focuses on mythological subjects. Thus Ovid's work of recounted myth became an intriguing subject for artists.
Different perspectives about art of course exist. Some modern artists (perhaps in their work) suggest--paradoxically--that painting comes closet to its essence when it abandons representations of the world altogether.
Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist No. 1 1950
But Renaissance artists-- although focusing on the world--had difficulties rendering stories as the author intended. Previously a great deal of the subjects for painting came from the Old and New Testament.
Rubens: Christ and Mary Magdalene, 1618, oil on panel
The revival of classical mythology vastly enlarged the scope of human experience available to the artist. Ovid's tales were in particular interesting as subjects. The themes allowed artists to push traditional boundaries.
What about Ovid's stories do you think attracted these artists?
Nature as mutable and nature pervaded with mystery and the supernatural certainly represents one answer to the above question. Nature is animate.
Paintings of Daphne were unique however because the artist actually showed the transformation--we add that this was done without distortion.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne
Guiseppe Cesari, Diana and Actaeon (1603-06)
Most of the artistic treatment of stories concentrates on a transgression, which is the cause of the metamorphosis.
Titian, Diana and Actaeon (1559)
Images of Centaurs and Satyrs were long-established hybrids and thus did not violate decorum.
Satyrs were male creatures who inhabited woodlands and forests in Greek mythology. They often accompanied Dionysus or Bacchus, and were frequently depicted in art and myth as members of the god's ecstatic entourage (an entourage, by the way, which included not only satyrs but the wild women known as Maenads or Bacchantes). In addition, the satyrs as a group were passionately fond of females--especially nymphs, those gentle and beautiful nature spirits.
So George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) painting of the Minotaur or Rubens painting of Lycaon (with a wolf's head) are unorthodox and were perhaps regarded as disturbing. They were certainly unprecedented. It was believed that the decorum for painting should be different than the decorum for writing because the immediacy of the visual will shock and disgust while the words of literature were more abstract and therein more benign.
This belief has implications for today?
Poussin painted a meditation on desire, reciprocity and loneliness: Acis and Galatea (1626-1628) (Book XIII, pages 460-467 ) Galatea loves Acis, but the Cyclops, Polyphemus, loves Galatea: she has "caught his eye." His gargantuan goofiness is recounted, including the use of a rake for a comb. Polyphemus renders a lengthy love song. He throws a mountain at Acis, which buries him. Acis turns into a stream from the rocks.
Ovid's stories continue to motivate artists because of the amount of detail in his stories-- a painting could be held together by the narrative itself.
During the fourteenth century Ovid's tales were comprehensively Christianized. Some Renaissance thinkers were less inclined to render Christian readings and mythology from the past begins to be part of the broader culture. The two most important mythological painters of the seventeenth century were perhaps Rubens and Poussin. Poussin is said to give us a philosophical interpretation of mythology. He is drawn to order but emphasizes the tragic. Poussin is attracted to Christ and Bacchus and Orpheus and the difficulties of resistance which they encounter.
Poussin, Orpheus and Eurydice
Poussin, Apollo and Daphne (1625)
Poussin, The Nurture of Bacchus
Rubens however remained essentially a Christian artist. The ancient gods do not become mystical and spiritual as they do in Poussin.
Rubens, Minerva defending Peace from Mars
Minerva stands for reason and wisdom in such paintings, and we are never tempted to imagine that the rather heavy Flemish woman who embodies her may be a goddess?
Rubens, Bacchus (1638) How about Bacchus? Is this the image of a god?
The Twentieth Century actually saw a renewed interest in classic mythology, brought on by rising interest in the human mind as psychoanalysis. But this reduces mythology down to the study of neurosis which is opposed, so to speak, to the more lively and passionate and humorous storytelling of Ovid as the subject of Renaissance art.
Work Cited
Allen, Christopher. "Ovid and Art" in Ovid. ed. Philip Hardie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002, 336-367.
