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The Dutch Golden Age: Troubled women of Paulus Bor
Paulus Bor (1601-1669) was born in the city of Amersfoort, to the north-east of Utrecht, and seems to have started his training locally before going to Rome, where he was one of the founders of a ‘secret’ society of Netherlandish expatriates, the Bentvueghels (‘birds of a feather’). He returned to Amersfoort to perform some decorative painting, then pursued a successful career there until his death in 1669. Apart from a Caravaggist tendency during his early career, he might seem a run-of-the-mill painter of the Golden Age.
What distinguishes Bor are his little-known portraits of women in trouble, images that dig deep into the psyche, long before the Age of Enlightenment.
The first of these is Ariadne, painted in the period 1630-35, which is reminiscent of Caravaggio, and a little mysterious. When Theseus came to Crete to kill the Minotaur, Ariadne helped him by giving him a ball of golden thread that he used to retrace his route out of the labyrinth after he had killed the Minotaur (her half-brother). Ariadne fell in love with Theseus, and the couple eloped to Naxos, where he abandoned her.
Bor’s portrait can only show Ariadne on Naxos, immediately after she has been abandoned, still clutching the thread by which she thought she had tethered Theseus, now hanging at a loose end. On the wall above her are sketches she has made of her lover. She looks deeply lost in thought and gloom. This may refer to Ovid’s imaginary letter from her to Theseus in his Heroides.
Then, in about 1635, Bor painted The Magdalen, clutching her bottle of myrrh and looking straight at the viewer. She too is troubled, and has clearly been crying.
At about the same time, he painted this Allegorical Figure, also known as an Allegory of Logic. Coiled around her right wrist is a snake, but she too looks straight at you. The reptile appears venomous, and could easily be a European adder (or viper), or even an asp of the type Cleopatra used to kill herself.
Bor’s last two portraits of women in trouble have clearer narrative bases.
The Disillusioned Medea (The Enchantress) from about 1640 appears unique among the images of the enchantress who used her magic to support Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. She fell in love with Jason, married him on his voyage home, and bore him two children. Ten years later, Jason divorced her for the King of Corinth’s daughter Glauce.
This was too much for Medea, who sent Glauce a poisoned wedding dress that killed her and her father horribly. She then killed her two children, and fled to Athens, where she had a child by King Aegeus. Ovid includes an imaginary letter from her to Jason in his Heroides.
Medea sits, her face flushed, resting her head on the heel of her right hand. In her left, she holds a wand made from bamboo or rattan. The wand is poised ready for use as soon as she has worked out what to do next. Behind her is a small altar, similar to Diana’s in Bor’s painting of Cydippe below, and the statue at the left is of Diana.
The last of these portraits is undated, but it has been proposed it was painted as a pendant to The Disillusioned Medea, thus in about 1640. This is also based upon two letters in Ovid’s Heroides, and his Art of Love.
Acontius was a young man from the lovely Greek island of Keos, who fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful young Cydippe. Sadly, she was of higher social standing than he was, and such a marriage was unthinkable to her family. He came up with an ingenious plan to trick her into making a commitment to him: he wrote the words I swear before Diana that I will marry only Acontius on an apple.
He then approached Cydippe when she was in the temple of Diana, and threw the inscribed apple in front of her. Her nurse picked it up, and handed it to Cydippe to read his words aloud before the altar, so binding her to the vow. She then seemingly overlooked this inadvertent commitment that she had made.
Her family had other ideas, and found her a prospective husband of appropriate status. Shortly before the couple were due to marry, Cydippe fell ill with a severe fever, and the proceedings were postponed. After she recovered, another attempt was made to marry the couple, but she again fell ill just before the ceremonies, so the wedding had to be called off yet again.
Unsure of what to do next, Cydippe’s parents consulted the oracle at Delphi, who told them the whole story. Recognising the strength of the vow that she had made, Cydippe and her parents finally accepted the match, and Acontius and Cydippe married with their blessing.
Bor’s Cydippe with Acontius’s Apple puts a different slant on the story: here, Cydippe leans on the altar, alone, the inscribed apple held up in her right hand. But she isn’t reading Acontius’ words: she has clearly already said those out aloud, and now seems to be thinking through the vow she has just made.
Bor paints the details of the altar exquisitely. Cydippe’s dress may be anachronistic, but the artist brings in the skull of a sacrificed goat and festoons of flowers.
Although Cydippe’s story is alluded to in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, appears in verse by Edward Bulwer Lytton and the artist and designer William Morris, and is told in six operas, including Hoffman’s Acontius and Cydippe, first performed in 1709, this appears to be its only significant depiction until the late eighteenth century.
Bor’s cycle of paintings of troubled women is unusual, and stands comparison with explorations of the mind in Rembrandt’s Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) and Lucretia (1666), also far in advance of their time.
