In yesterday’s article, I showed examples of apotheoses. Following a couple of even more liberal interpretations, this article moves on to the second and third items in this list:

• Apotheosis, when a pre-christian hero is elevated to the status of god or goddess;
• Catasterisation, when a mortal is changed into a celestial body such as a star or constellation;
• Assumption, when the Virgin Mary was taken up into Heaven;
• Ascension, when Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, and sometimes available to saints on their martyrdom.

Girodet’s painting of the Apotheosis of the French Heroes Who Died for the Fatherland during the War of Liberation, Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes was probably completed in 1802, and is perhaps the most elaborate and complex painting inspired by the bogus Scottish poet Ossian. It’s unclear how those French war heroes became involved with Ossian, but an extraordinary mixture of myths and legends from contrasting cultures.

In Vasily Vereshchagin’s bleak Apotheosis of War (1871), ravens/crows perch on a huge pile of human skulls in a barren landscape outside the ruins of a town.

A few Christian religious paintings came close to being apotheoses.

Alexandre Cabanel’s The Death of Moses (1850) tackles one of the vaguer episodes in the life of this Old Testament prophet. When he was 120 years old, according to the book of Numbers, Moses assembled the tribes of Israel on the banks of the River Jordan, reminded them of the laws under which they must live, sang a song of praise, blessed the people, and passed his authority to Joshua. He then ascended Mount Nebo, looked over the Promised Land, and died. Cabanel shows this as an apotheosis, with God the Father (upper left) welcoming Moses (centre right) with open arms.

Being transformed into a celestial body in catasterisation was an honour accorded those mortals who couldn’t aspire to deity, among them the giant Orion. He arrived at Chios, where he became drunk, and raped Merope, the daughter of Oenopion. As punishment for that, Oenopion blinded Orion and cast him from his land. Orion then went to Lemnos, where Hephaistos took pity on him, and lent him his servant Kedalion to sit astride his shoulders and act as his guide. An oracle advised Orion to proceed east into the rays of the rising sun, so that those rays would restore his sight. So cured, Orion then went to Crete to hunt.

There are differing accounts of Orion’s death. Some involve his love affair with Eos, which was opposed (possibly out of jealousy) by Artemis. In these, Artemis ended up killing Orion with her arrows. Other versions claim he was killed by a giant scorpion. In death, Artemis asked that Zeus catasterised him, together with the scorpion, to form the constellation Scorpio. Once there, Orion pursues the daughters known as the Pleiades, which form a prominent open star cluster nearby.

Poussin’s Landscape with Orion, or Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun was painted late in his career, in 1658, at a time when the artist’s hands were suffering a tremor that was starting to disrupt his ability to paint. It is among his finest allegorical landscapes, and one of the most intensely studied works of his career.

Set in one of Poussin’s wonderful idealised landscapes, near the coast, the giant Orion is striding purposefully towards the rising sun. He carries a huge hunting bow, and a quiver taller than a man. Standing on his shoulders is Kedalion, servant to Hephaistos, who is acting as his guide. Above and beyond Orion is a strange formation of backlit cloud, generally interpreted as being storm-cloud. Atop that is the standing figure of Artemis, with her distinctive crescent moon coronet, and an owl perched on her left shoulder. She leans nonchalantly against the cloud, her head propped against her right hand. In the far distance is the sea, with a prominent lighthouse.

There have been few other attempts to tell any part of the story of Orion on canvas. In 1685, Daniel Seiter ( –1705) painted this view of Diana by the Corpse of Orion, following in the brushstrokes of his teacher Johann Carl Loth. This shows Diana (Artemis), with her distinctive crescent moon, looking regretfully at the dead Orion, after she had killed him with her arrows.

Sidney Hall’s etching of Orion, a hand-coloured plate in a set of celestial cards from 1825, is an ingenious lesson in observational astronomy.

The Pleiades were originally the seven daughters of the titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione. When Atlas was made to carry the heavens on his shoulders, Orion started to pursue the Pleiades, so Zeus transformed them first into doves, then into stars. Their name is given to a star cluster, which appears to be chased across the night sky by the constellation of Orion.

Elihu Vedder’s painting of The Pleiades (1885) was made in association with his first illustration for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, representing Khayyam’s horoscope. Each of the sisters is connected by a thread to their corresponding star, perhaps representing the process of catasterisation.

There are a great many paintings of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, of which I show here just a tiny sample.

Francesco Botticini’s spectacular example painted in about 1475-76 places unusual emphasis on Paradise, with its triple tiers of figures rising to those of the Virgin Mary kneeling in front of Christ at its summit.

Tintoretto painted several versions of The Assumption of The Virgin, this one for the Cappella di Santa Maria Assunta, in the Gesuiti, Venice. It’s thought that Tintoretto had promised to paint this in the style of Veronese.

Poussin’s Assumption of the Virgin from about 1650 is plainer and more orthodox.

Gaetano Previati’s Divisionist rendering of the Assumption from about 1901-03 shows a group of winged angels raising Mary’s body to Heaven.

Camels are very large ungulates adapted to life in the desert, famous for their ability to survive for long periods without eating or drinking, their unpleasant smell, and a notoriously bad temper. I like Wikipedia’s sense of humour when it refers to their domestication, as few companion species could be less domesticated, but that’s supposed to have happened at least three thousand years ago.

Since then camels have been a mainstay of many major trade routes, with the single-hump dromedary best-known in Europe from its distribution across northern Africa and well into the Middle East. The Bactrian camel with its two humps has a more exotic range across central Asia, as far west as Georgia. There’s even an annual beauty pageant of camels in the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival held in Saudi Arabia.

Camels have been known to European artists since ancient times, and feature in several well-established narratives.

Piero di Cosimo’s account of Vulcan and Aeolus from about 1490 is one of the earliest in modern Western painting. From the left the figures are a river god, Vulcan forging a horseshoe, a figure (possibly Aeolus, keeper of the winds) riding a horse, a man curled asleep in a foetal position, a couple and their infant son, and four carpenters erecting the frame of a building. Among the animals are a giraffe and a black camel. It’s thought this shows early humans developing crafts at the start of civilisation.

They also feature in the centre panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, painted in about 1500. This shows a rolling deer park with lakes, overrun by a dense mass of naked men and women, animals and bizarre objects.

The middle distance is dominated by a central circular pond, in which there are groups of people. Around them is a procession of people riding horses, camels, and other mammals, in an anticlockwise direction around the central pond. To the left and right are more groups of people interacting, apparently in playful ways, with bizarre objects, such as the tail of a massive lobster.

Camels have occasionally featured in the cavalcade of animals being charmed by Orpheus.

Aelbert Cuyp’s Orpheus with Animals in a Landscape from about 1640 is one of at least two different paintings he made of the story. Here he has included a wide range of both domestic and exotic animals and birds, including a dromedary, a distant elephant, an ostrich, herons and wildfowl, although Orpheus is seen playing a violin rather than a lyre.

Among the many superb animal paintings of Paulus Potter, Orpheus and Animals from 1650 is one of his most unusual, showing a wide range of different animal species, some of which weren’t well-known at that time, and one of which (the unicorn) didn’t even exist. Those seen include a Bactrian camel (two humps), donkey, cattle, ox, wild pig, sheep, dog, goat, rabbit, lions, dromedary (one hump), horse, elephant, snake, deer, unicorn, lizard, wolf, and monkey.

Camels also appear in paintings of Old Testament stories from the book of Genesis.

This page from the Vienna Genesis from about 525 CE tells the story of Rebecca and Eliezer, from Genesis chapter 24. In his quest for a wife for his son Isaac, Abraham sent his servant Eliezer back to their homeland of Mesopotamia to look for one. Eliezer reached the city of Nahor, where he stopped to water his camels and rest from his long journey. He pulled up at a well outside the city, where a young woman, Rebecca, had just drawn water. She offered him her water, and he recognised her as the chosen bride for Isaac, so presented her with the betrothal gifts he had brought with him.

This exquisitely painted miniature uses multiplex narrative. In the background is a symbolic representation of Nahor. Rebecca is shown at the left, having walked out of the city with her pitcher on her shoulder, along a colonnade. In front of her is a pagan water nymph, presumably the spirit of that well. Rebecca is shown a second time, and at similar size, giving Eliezer her pitcher to slake his thirst. His train of relatively tiny camels is also taking water.

Benjamin West painted Isaac’s Servant Tying the Bracelet on Rebecca’s Arm in 1775. This shows Eliezer giving her two golden bracelets and a nose ring, tokens that she showed her family, and marked her as Isaac’s intended wife. The camel at the left doesn’t seem as impressed, though.

Alexandre Cabanel painted an earlier moment in his Rebecca and Eliezer from 1883, showing the camels drinking the water provided by Rebecca.

Camels have also appeared as atmospheric extras in other Biblical narratives.

Eugène Delacroix’s magnificent painting of Jacob Wrestling with the Angel in the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris is drawn from the Book of Genesis, where Jacob is trying to assuage Esau’s anger by taking him flocks and gifts. He meets a stranger, an angel, who gets into a bitter quarrel with him, which is only ended when the stranger touches Jacob on the tendon of his thigh and renders him helpless. That’s the moment depicted here, as the angel’s right hand reaches under Jacob’s left thigh. To the right are flocks of sheep with Jacob’s shepherds driving them on a mixture of horses and camels.

They also appear in some accounts of the Nativity of Christ, either accompanying the Magi when they pay their respects to the infant and Holy Family, or later during the flight to Egypt.

Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua, Italy, contain an elaborate depiction of The Adoration of the Magi from about 1305. The infant Christ rests on the Virgin Mary’s knee; she was originally clad in her signature ultramarine blue, but that has worn away with the years. Mary is accompanied by Joseph and an angel, and the Holy Family is within a wooden shed. The three ‘wise men’ pay their respects and present their gifts, here accompanied by camels and at least two attendants. The comet that attracted their attention is shown as a fireball crossing the sky.

Tomorrow’s sequel moves to show camels in more recent times.