Gates as a means of access through the walls of fortified cities have ancient origins, but it wasn’t until the Etruscans and the Romans that they acquired their own deity, notably in the Roman god Janus with his two faces. His association with gates, and the start and end of war, gave rise to an interesting tradition in classical Rome: the gates at each end of an open enclosure associated with the god were kept open in times of war, and closed when the city and empire was at peace. Opening the gates of the temple of Janus was therefore a mark of starting a war.

In Rubens’ Temple of Janus from 1634, those gates, here imagined to be those of a temple, are being opened to let a warrior through to battle. Above that doorway is a statue of Janus with his two faces.

In Biblical narratives, the prominent account involving gates, other than those of heaven or hell, occurs at the start of the Passion of Jesus, in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding a donkey, since celebrated by Palm Sunday. This has been depicted in two significant works in the late nineteenth century.

Gustave Doré painted several versions of Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem including this preparatory sketch, in preparation for his final huge version exhibited at the Salon in 1876, measuring 6 by 10 metres.

In 1897 Jean-Léon Gérôme painted his account of The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem. According to all four gospels, Jesus descended from the Mount of Olives, and as he proceeded towards Jerusalem, crowds laid their clothes on the ground to welcome his triumphal entry into the city. Aside from being one of the major events in the Passion to be shown in paintings, for Gérôme this may have had another reading. Just a few years earlier, his paintings were being welcomed by throngs at the Salon, and commanded huge sums when sold. A short time later, his work was largely ignored, and he may have seen himself as being prepared for crucifixion in public.

The gate of hell is featured in two of the major Christian literary works of the early modern period: Dante’s Divine Comedy (c 1308-1321) and John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667).

At the start of Dante’s Inferno, the ghost of Virgil leads the author to the gate of Hell. Inscribed above it is a forbidding series of lines leaving the traveller in no doubt that they’re going to a place of everlasting pain and tortured souls. This culminates in the most famous line of the whole of the Divine Comedy:
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate
traditionally translated as Abandon hope all ye who enter here, but perhaps more faithfully as Leave behind all hope, you who enter, and is seen written in William Blake’s own hand below.

It’s also William Blake who depicts Satan at the gates of hell in his paintings to accompany the second book of Milton’s epic.

Two versions, that from the Thomas set above, and below that from the Butts set, show Satan at the gate of hell, on his way out and heading for heaven.

Although the phrase pearly gates, derived from a description of the gate to heaven in the book of Revelation, has been in common use, few if any paintings have depicted them literally. However, in paintings of secular life they can have symbolic significance.

James Tissot painted The Farewells soon after his flight to London in the summer of 1871. This couple, separated by the iron rails of a closed gate, are in late eighteenth century dress. The man stares intently at the woman, his gloved left hand resting on the spikes along the top of the gate, and his ungloved right hand grasps her left. She plays idly with her clothing with her other hand, and looks down, towards their hands.

Reading her clothing, she is plainly dressed, implying she was a governess, perhaps. A pair of scissors suspended by string on her left side would fit with that, and they’re also symbols of the parting taking place. This is reinforced by the autumn season, and dead leaves at the lower edge of the canvas. However, there is some hope if the floral symbols are accurate: ivy in the lower left is indicative of fidelity and marriage, while holly at the right invokes hope and passion.

Edmund Blair Leighton’s Regency scene of The Elopement from 1893, shows a woman leaving home to run away with her lover, the oarsman in the boat. She closes the gate on her old life as she looks back and reflects, before boarding the boat in which she will start the journey of her new life.

Lovis Corinth wasn’t the only artist to have his own suit of armour. Rembrandt apparently bought at least one, while Jean-Léon Gérôme seems to have kept a suit hanging in his studio.

The End of the Pose (1886) is the first of Gérôme’s series of unusual compound paintings, which are at once self-portraits of him as a sculptor, studies in the relationship between a model and their sculpted double, and further forays into issues of what is seen, visual revelation, and truth.

Here, while Gérôme cleans up, his model is seen covering up her sculpted double with sheets, as she remains naked. Hanging against the wall behind is a complete suit of armour, and there is a single red rose on the wooden platform on which the model and statue stand.

Armour has occasionally been purely symbolic, most famously in the collaborative painting of Touch by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens in their series The Five Senses from 1618.

Touch extends beyond its title to encompass other tactile sensory modalities. Heat is associated with a brazier, fine touch with brushes nearby. Much of the panel is devoted to a collection of armour, weapons, and their manufacture by gunsmiths and armourers. The many suits on display, seen in the detail below, appear to be equipment that isolates rather than stimulates the sense of touch.

During the nineteenth century, many painters looked back at the age of knights and chivalry, which inspired German Romantics, Pre-Raphaelites, and some of the last academic artists of the century.

The crusades presented Carl Friedrich Lessing with an ideal combination of mediaeval history, romance, and chivalry. In The Return of the Crusader from 1835, he shows a lone knight in full armour dozing as his horse plods its way up a path from the coast. Although his armour is still shiny, a tattered battle pennant hangs limply from his lance. This is based on a Romantic poem by the writer Karl Leberecht Immermann (1796-1840).

Edmund Blair Leighton’s Conquest from 1884 shows a stereotype knight in shining armour walking through an arch with its portcullis raised, a fair maiden walking behind him, as this victor enters the castle he has just conquered. The knight appears to be an idealised self-portrait.

Leighton’s The Accolade (1901) apparently shows Henry VI the Good – of Poland, not the British Henry VI – being dubbed a knight. Every link in his chain mail has been crafted individually.

Manuel García Hispaleto’s Don Quixote’s Speech of Arms and Letters (1884) shows the hero, his squire Sancho Panza behind, delivering one of his many orations after dinner, in a full suit of armour, as you would.

Eugène Delacroix visited tales of chivalry in his Combat Between Two Horsemen in Armour, painted at some time between 1825-30.

Plate armour continued to be worn by soldiers well into the twentieth century, and appears in some paintings of contemporary history.

Paul-Émile Boutigny’s undated Scene from the Franco-Prussian War shows soldiers from both sides of this short war in 1870-71. The soldier on the left is French, and holds a French Chassepot musketon with a long yataghan bayonet, while his colleague on the right appears to be Prussian, with his pickelhaube spiked helmet and a heavy cavalry cuirass that’s essentially modernised armour. (I’m grateful to Boris for his expert interpretation of this motif.)

François Flameng’s undated scene of Germans from the First World War shows the odd combination of archaic plate armour with modern gas masks.

Finally, as everyone knows, a knight goes to their grave in their armour.

Briton Rivière’s Requiescat from 1888 epitomises the faithful relationship between a dog and its master. As the knight’s body is laid out clad in armour, so his dog sits pining by the side of his body.

Armour, either in the form of plates of metal or chain mail with its many interlocked rings, is the primary attribute and symbol of the warrior. As such, several of the classical deities are often depicted wearing armour.

Peter Paul Rubens painted The Triumph of Victory in about 1614 for the Antwerp Guild of St George, its organisation of archers. Mars in his short suit of black armour dominates, his bloody sword resting on the thigh of Victoria, the personification of victory. She reaches over to place a wreath of oak or laurel on Mars, and holds a staff in her left hand. At the right, Mars is being passed the bundle of crossbow bolts that make up the attribute of Concord. Under the feet of Mars are the bodies of Rebellion, in the foreground, who still holds his torch, and Discord, on whose cheek a snake is crawling. The bound figure resting against the left knee of Mars is Barbarism.

Jacob Jordaens’ finished version of an original sketch by Rubens now known as The Golden Apple of Discord (1633) shows the wedding feast of the deities where Eris (Discord) makes her gift of the golden apple to set up the Judgement of Paris, leading to the Trojan War. At the left, Athena/Minerva, wearing her plumed helmet and a suit of ornate plate armour, reaches forward for that apple.

Just to confuse, the Roman goddess of war, Bellona (Greek Enyo), is also shown in or with armour by convention.

Peter Paul Rubens’ undated Portrait of Marie de’ Medici as Bellona shows her in the midst of cannon, arms and armour, with an exuberantly decorated helmet, a sceptre and a statue of a winged woman.

Armour inevitably plays a role in some of the events reported during the war against Troy. After his close friend Patroclus had been killed while wearing the armour of Achilles, he demanded a fresh suit made by Vulcan/Hephaestus before he would return to engage in battle.

Anthony van Dyck’s Thetis Receiving the Weapons of Achilles from Hephaestus from about 1630-32 shows the scene when Thetis is collecting her son’s new armour from Hephaestus, at the left.

Benjamin West’s Thetis Bringing the Armour to Achilles from 1804 shows the Greek warrior being presented with the armour and helmet by his mother Thetis.

When Achilles is killed in battle, in accordance with warrior tradition, his armour was handed on to the next in line, who could have been either Ajax or Odysseus.

Leonaert Bramer’s small painting on copper of The Quarrel between Ajax and Odysseus was made between about 1625-30. The pair stand in their armour, next to tents pitched at the foot of Troy’s mighty walls. At their feet is the armour of Achilles, and all around them are Greek warriors, some in exotic dress to suggest more distant origins.

Armour also leaked through into Christian religious paintings.

Lucas Cranach the Younger sets The Conversion of Saul (1549) in mediaeval northern Europe, with Paul and his party riding knightly chargers in their armour. Paul’s horse has fallen to the ground, with Paul still in the saddle rather than prostrate on the ground. Paul holds his hands up and looks to the heavens, where the figure of Christ is seen in a break in the clouds at the top left corner.

It was the young French martyr Joan of Arc, though, who is most often depicted wearing armour.

JAD Ingres painted Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII, in Reims Cathedral (1854). She stands close to the crown, resplendent in full armour and holding a standard, the two-pointed oriflamme embroidered for her by the women of Orléans, in her right hand.

The second scene in Jules Eugène Lenepveu’s Joan of Arc Murals (1886-90) shows Joan leading the French forces against the English, who were laying siege to the French city of Orléans. There had been controversy in Joan’s trial as to whether she had used weapons against the English; Lenepveu hedges here, showing her holding a sword in her right hand, but brandishing the Dauphin’s standard to rally the French, in the role that she described of herself. She’s wearing a suit of plate armour, which she was provided with in preparation for this operation. As this would have been designed to fit a man, this was part of the case against her for ‘cross-dressing’ in men’s clothes.

Lovis Corinth is one of several major painters who acquired themselves a suit of armour. This featured in two symbolic paintings made before and after the First World War.

When war broke out on 28 July 1914, Lovis Corinth and most of the other artists in Berlin shared an enthusiastic patriotism that initially gave them a buoyant optimism. He expressed this openly in his In Defence of Weapons from 1915.

Armour Parts in the Studio is Corinth’s summary of Germany’s defeat in 1918. The suit of armour is now empty, broken apart, and cast on the floor of his studio.

In the first of these two articles I showed paintings of Hercules (Heracles) brandishing a large olive-wood club and wearing a lion-skin, as a stereotype of the ultimate high-testosterone uncouth hero. That association was strong enough to make its way into some more Christian images.

In Frans Francken the Younger’s composite painting of Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – The Choice Between Virtue and Vice from 1633, the upper section of Paradise sets heroes including Hercules, to the left of centre with his trademark club and lion-skin, in an idealised landscape. Above them is an angelic musical ensemble serenading the figures below. This clearly was a Paradise for the artist’s patron, not the common person.

Clubs also appeared in other examples of hand-to-hand combat drawn from classical mythology.

In Peter Paul Rubens’ finished painting of The Rape of Hippodame (Lapiths and Centaurs) (1636-38) the figure at the upper right is just about to bring his club down on this wedding feast that turned into a pitched battle.

Sebastiano Ricci’s Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs from about 1705 uses multiplex narrative to tell the same story. In the left background, Hippodame is seen being carried away by Eurytus, and a centaur in the centre foreground is swinging his club at one of the Lapiths.

Although the original story of the death of Orpheus at the hands of Bacchantes has them club him with their thyrsi, more modern interpretations are content with ordinary clubs.

Louis Bouquet’s The Death of Orpheus (1925-39) transports this scene to a beach, where the naked Bacchantes are armed with clubs, and just starting to tear the body of Orpheus with their bare hands and teeth.

Some earlier paintings of Christian devils show them with clubs.

Painted in 1430-32, Stefano di Giovanni’s St Anthony Beaten by the Devils identifies the saint by his Tau crucifix. Three devils, clearly fallen angels by their wings, are beating him with clubs. Those devils are fairly conventional figures, part animal and part man, with horns.

In contrast, Hercules’ lion-skin developed different associations, and involved other species.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier’s romanticised view of The Siege of Paris from 1870 combines almost every symbol relevant to the city’s distress, and dresses the symbolic figure of Marianne in a lion-skin against a battle-worn flag.

By the end of the nineteenth century, animal skins had gone from the uncouth to the mildly erotic, as seen in several of John William Godward’s paintings of doing nothing, or Dolce Far Niente.

This first from 1897 returns to a classical Roman setting, and adds a brilliant green parakeet to accompany this woman on a tiger-skin, in her diaphonous dress.

Seven years later (in 1904), Godward painted his more complex version, also known as Sweet Idleness, or A Pompeian Fishpond. More modestly clad, his lone woman rests with her knees drawn up into a sleeping (near-foetal) position on another animal skin, with a peacock-feather fan in the foreground.

A couple of years after that (in 1906), Godward’s beautiful woman is stretched out on an animal skin on marble, a colour-co-ordinated garden and distant Mediterranean waterscape beyond: a far cry from the uncouth Hercules.

Blue pigments used in painting include some of the oldest used by man, and others that led the change to modern synthetic pigments driven by the arrival of chemistry in the eighteenth century. This weekend I look at two examples, today the queen of pigments, ultramarine, and tomorrow the first synthetic chemical, Prussian blue.

Originally made by crushing and grinding the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, the cost of ultramarine has exceeded that of gold. Seen in paintings, it produces a rich slightly reddish blue which stands the test of time, as distinctive and effective today as when it was first used. And its use has a history of unmasking fakes and forgeries.

The sole source of lapis lazuli in Europe and the West were quarries in Badakshan, described by Marco Polo and now in Afghanistan. It appears that wall paintings made around 507-554 CE adjacent to the great Buddahs of Bamiyan were the first to have used the mineral as a pigment. It was then used in early Persian miniatures, and in early Chinese and Indian paintings too. Tragically, these wall paintings in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, were damaged by the Taliban in 2001 when the two statues were destroyed, and their restoration has made little progress since.

The powdered pigment had made its way, first along the Silk Road, then by sea, to traders in Venice by about 1300. By the Renaissance, it was established as one of the most important and precious of all the pigments used in European art.

Because of its beauty and high cost, ultramarine blue was used for the robes of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Duccio’s panels from the Maestà Predella, including this of The Healing of the Man born Blind, show this tradition in its earliest years, around 1307-11. As a pigment, it proved practical in egg tempera as here, and in oils, watercolour, and fresco.

Ultramarine blue has been found in the van Eyck brothers’ Ghent Altarpiece from about 1432 (above), and particularly in its most famous panel, The Mystic Lamb, below.

Sandro Botticelli’s early tempera on panel painting Adoration of the Kings from about 1470, apparently made with Filippino Lippi, shows two different blue colours and purple. He painted the purple with an opaque underpainting of lead white tinted with a red lake derived from madder, to create pink. That was then glazed with quite coarse particles of ultramarine blue, so the pigment was thinly dispersed.

Peter Paul Rubens used ultramarine blue widely in his magnificent triptych now in Antwerp Cathedral. In its centre panel, Descent from the Cross (1612-14), it has been found combined with indigo and other pigments.

In van Dyck’s Charity from 1627-8, its most obvious use is in the blue cape, where ultramarine blue was painted over indigo, applied as both a tint and as a glaze over the top.

Visit any of the larger galleries with substantial collections of paintings made before 1700, and you will see works with drapery that I can only describe as arresting in the brilliance of their ultramarine blue. One stunning example in the National Gallery in London is Sassoferrato’s The Virgin in Prayer from 1640-50. The Virgin’s cloak looks as if it was painted only yesterday, and that colour makes you stop in your tracks and draws you into the painting, like no other pigment can.

Given its importance, and limited supply, considerable effort was devoted to ensuring that natural ultramarine blue was of the highest quality, and alternative sources were sought. Deposits in the Chilean Andes, and near Lake Baikal in Siberia, weren’t developed until the nineteenth century, and attempts to make synthetic ultramarine proved unsuccessful until 1828, when Jean Baptiste Guimet was awarded a prize of six thousand francs for his discovery. Almost simultaneously, C G Gmelin of Tübingen discovered a slightly different method.

Commercial production had started by 1830, and it became known as French ultramarine, to distinguish it from the natural pigment. Although almost identical in colour and performance, there are significant differences between natural and synthetic ultramarine when tested in the laboratory. This has enabled the examination of paintings to determine the source of their pigment, and has brought some surprises. These most often relate to later overpainting during restoration. For example, two areas of much later painting have been discovered in the van Eycks’ Ghent Altarpiece.

Examination of Édouard Manet’s Corner of a Café-Concert, from 1878-80, has shown that he used synthetic ultramarine in its blue passages, for example.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s The Umbrellas, from about 1881-86, uses synthetic ultramarine in a methodical fashion. The first stage in its painting used only cobalt blue, but in its second stage synthetic ultramarine was applied extensively.

Vincent van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses (1889) contains synthetic ultramarine in its deepest blues, and in some areas of green, although it’s unusual to find ultramarine mixed to form green. Before synthetic pigment became available, this would have been far too expensive a way of making any significant amount of green, but once much cheaper pigment came onto the market, that became more feasible, if still unusual.

The ability to distinguish synthetic ultramarine, which didn’t exist before about 1828, and the natural pigment has proved important in detecting some forgeries. Only the most ignorant would attempt to pass off a painting made with synthetic ultramarine as being very old, but a few fakes fell at that hurdle.

Han van Meegeren was far too knowledgeable and cunning to be caught so easily. He used natural ultramarine, for example when he sold The Men at Emmaus (1937) to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen as a Vermeer. What no one knew at the time was that his ultramarine looked genuine, but had been contaminated with a small amount of cobalt blue, which wasn’t discovered until 1803-04, and was first used as a pigment in 1806.

In 1960, the modern artist Yves Klein worked with the paint supplier Edouard Adam to ‘invent’ a paint he termed International Klein Blue (IKB). Although its formulation is a secret, it’s almost entirely synthetic ultramarine blue pigment in a polyvinyl acetate binder.

Like all the best queens, ultramarine blue has an unnerving habit of revealing the truth.

Reference

Joyce Plesters (1993) Artists’ Pigments, vol 2, ed Ashok Roy, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 75 3.

This second article concludes my virtual exhibition of a selection of Peter Paul Rubens’ paintings of myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Rubens and his workshop painted several different accounts of Ovid’s great story of the Calydonian Boar Hunt. This is the first, from about 1611-12, with Meleager just about to finish the wounded boar off. Atalanta’s arrow is visible by its left ear, and the body of Ancaeus lies just behind Meleager’s left foot. The wall of horses behind the boar, and the crowd of hunters behind Meleager, including Atalanta in blue, frame the combatants in the foreground, with some spears directing the gaze at a visual centre of the boar’s snout.

A few years later, in about 1618-19, Rubens reworked his composition in this marvellous study of Meleager and Atalanta and the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar. This shifts the visual centre closer to the geometric centre, and brings the gaze in using a greater range of radials. It also gives Atalanta a more active part, as in Ovid’s text.

Rubens’ finished result is The Hunt of Meleager and Atalanta probably from around 1618-20. Meleager has aged slightly, and the boar rests its hoof on the body of Ancaeus. Radial lines of spears are augmented by a dog and some human figures, and the centre of the painting now includes a landscape, with bright sky used to emphasise the visual centre. It also seems to show not just Atalanta at the right hand of Meleager, but two other women behind her, and possibly another in blue robes on a horse just above the middle of the painting.

Rubens and his workshop’s Meleager Presents Atalanta with the Head of the Calydonian Boar (before 1640) shows the award of the trophy by Meleager. The couple are here alone, apart from an inevitable winged cupid, and a goddess, most probably Diana, watching from the heavens. Meleager stands on the forelegs of the dead boar, and his spear behind is still covered in its blood.

Around 1615, Rubens collaborated with Jan Brueghel the Elder (father of Jan Brueghel the Younger) in The Feast of Achelous. There are nine men around the banqueting table, without any distant nymphs.

His Stormy Landscape with Philemon and Baucis from about 1625 is one of the few paintings to show a broader view of this late moment in Ovid’s story. His dramatic landscape shows storm-clouds building over the hills, a raging torrent pouring down the mountainside, dragging large trees and animals in its swollen waters, and the four figures on a track at the right. Philemon and Baucis are struggling up the track with their sticks, Jupiter points to a rainbow formed over a waterfall at the lower left corner, and Mercury is all but naked.

Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder also collaborated in Nymphs Filling the Horn of Plenty, again in about 1615. Although it has no references to the fight between Hercules and Achelous, it’s good to see the staff preparing the second course of Achelous’ banquet.

This marvellous painting was probably made by Rubens’ workshop around the time of the Master’s death in 1640. It views The Abduction of Deianeira by the Centaur Nessus from the bank on which Hercules is poised to shoot his arrow into Nessus. This has the centaur running across the width of the canvas, his face and body well exposed for Hercules’ arrow to enter his chest. To make clear Nessus’ intentions, a winged Cupid has been added, and Deianeira’s facial expression is clear in intent. An additional couple, in the right foreground, might be intended to be a ferryman and his friend, who appear superfluous apart from their role in achieving compositional balance.

A few years before his death, Rubens painted a wonderful account of The Birth of the Milky Way (1636-37). Jupiter sits in the background on the left, seemingly bored. Juno’s milk arcs out from her left breast over the heavens, and her peacocks look distressed.

His atmospheric painting of the flight of Orpheus and Eurydice (1636-38) was also made during his later years of retirement, a few years before his death. Orpheus, clutching his lyre, is leading Eurydice away from Hades and Persephone, as they start their journey back to life. He opts for an unusually real-world version of Cerberus at the bottom right corner.

Rubens’ The Rape of Ganymede (1636-37) is surprising for its use of profane humour, with the placement of both ends of Ganymede’s quiver. Clearly this wasn’t intended for viewing by polite mixed company.

In 1636, when he was in retirement, Rubens made one of his wonderful oil sketches of The Death of Hyacinth, capturing the scene vividly, as Hyacinthus’ head rests against the fateful discus. This doesn’t seem to have been turned into a finished painting.

Rubens skilfully reversed Titian’s composition in his undated Venus and Adonis. Adonis is trying to depart to the left with his back to the viewer, bringing the beauty of Venus into full view, and strengthening its triangular composition. It also provides a natural place for Cupid, holding onto Adonis’s leg to stop him from going to his death. Cupid’s quiver, left on the ground behind him, is a reminder of the origin of the relationship.

In or just before 1614, Rubens made this oil sketch of Venus Mourning Adonis, a complex composition with the addition of three Graces, and the young Cupid at the right.

Rubens’ finished version of Death of Adonis retains the same composition. A rather portly Venus cradles her lover’s head as the Graces weep in grief with her. Rubens has been generous with the young man’s blood, which is splashed around his crotch and spills out onto the ground, where the hounds are sniffing it. The fateful spear rests under Adonis’s legs.

His painting of The Rape of Hippodame (Lapiths and Centaurs) (1636-38), remains faithful to his earlier sketch and its composition. Facial expressions, particularly that of the Lapith at the left bearing a sword, are particularly powerful.

Rubens’ The Death of Achilles (c 1630-35) also adheres faithfully to an earlier oil sketch. Achilles’ face is deathly white, and this brings to life the supporting detail, particularly the lioness attacking a horse at the lower edge of the canvas, symbolising Paris’s attack on Achilles.

Rubens included this oil sketch in his Achilles series, showing Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (1630-35). This is taking place in the foreground, while in the middle distance Charon is seen ferrying the dead across the River Styx into the Underworld.

In his late oil sketch of Vertumnus and Pomona of 1636, there’s no pretence that Vertumnus is a woman: he lacks breasts, and even has heavy beard stubble. However, the embrace of his right arm still brings Pomona to push him away with her left arm.

The outstanding depiction of Ovid’s story is Rubens’ earlier Vertumnus and Pomona from 1617-19. Vertumnus has assumed his real form, that of a handsome young man. Pomona looks back, her sickle still in her right hand, and her rejection of his advances is melting away in front of our eyes. Rubens even offers us a couple of rudely symbolic melons, and provides distant hints at Vertumnus doing the work in the garden while Pomona directs him, at the upper left.

In about 1618-20, Rubens collaborated with Frans Snyders to paint Pythagoras Advocating Vegetarianism. The mathematician and philosopher sits to the left of centre, with a group of followers further to the left. The painting is dominated by its extensive display of fruit and vegetables, which is being augmented by three nymphs and two satyrs. One of the latter seems less interested in the food than he is in one of the nymphs.

Several Masters have specialised in painting myths told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although Nicolas Poussin painted many, perhaps the most prolific is Peter Paul Rubens, whose work has featured in nearly half the articles in this series. Here, possibly for the first time, I bring together a virtual exhibition of some of his best narrative paintings drawn from Ovid.

Rubens’ Deucalion and Pyrrha (1636) shows an aged couple, clearly beyond any hope of parenthood, which at least explains why this metamorphosis was needed. As their more reasonably sized rocks transform, they follow an ontogenetic process, instead of behaving like sculpted blocks. Rubens also treats us to some interesting details: the couple’s boat is shown at the top right, and a newly transformed couple appear already to be engaged in the initial stages of making the next generation without the aid of metamorphosis.

His late oil sketch of Pan and Syrinx from about 1636 is one of the few paintings that attempts to show Syrinx undergoing her transformation into reeds, and succeeds in making Pan appear thoroughly lecherous.

Rubens’ finest painting of the story of the rape of Io is his Juno and Argus from about 1611, showing this part of its outcome. Juno, wearing the red dress and coronet, is receiving eyes that have been removed from Argus’ severed head, and is placing them on the tail feathers of her peacocks. The headless corpse of Argus lies contorted in the foreground. Rubens took the opportunity of adding a visual joke, in which Juno’s left hand appears to be cupped under the breasts of the woman behind.

His The Fall of Phaeton, started in about 1604, is perhaps the best of several superb paintings of this story. He seems to have reworked this over the following three or four years, and elaborates the scene to augment the chaos: accompanying Phaëthon in the chariot of the sun are the Hours (Horae, some shown with butterfly wings), who are thrown into turmoil, and time falls out of joint as Phaëthon tumbles out of the chariot.

His is also one of the best accounts of Jupiter and Callisto (1613). Diana looks a tad more masculine than in most depictions, and their facial expressions are more serious, with Callisto hesitant and suspicious. Most importantly, Rubens tells us that this Diana is more than meets the eye: parked in the background is Jupiter’s signature eagle, with a thunderbolt in its talons.

This is the better of his two versions of Erichthonius Discovered by the Daughters of Cecrops, from about 1616. Aglauros has just given way to temptation and taken the top off the basket entrusted to the sisters by Minerva, revealing the infant Ericthonius and a small snake inside. To the right is a fountain in honour of the Ephesian Artemis (Roman Diana), distinctive with her multiple breasts, each of which is a source of water. At the left, in the distance, is a herm, at the foot of which is a peacock, suggesting that Juno isn’t far away.

Rubens’ workshop is credited with this oil sketch of Cadmus Sowing Dragon’s Teeth from between 1610-90, the start of Ovid’s history of Thebes. Cadmus stands at the left, Minerva directing him from the air. The warriors are shown in different states, some still emerging from the teeth, others killing one another. Behind Cadmus is the serpent, dead and visibly edentulous.

His oil sketch of The Death of Semele from about 1620 reveals Semele pregnant on a bed and in obvious distress. Jupiter grasps his thunderbolt in his right hand, as his dragon-like eagle swoops in through the window.

Rubens’ Perseus and Andromeda (c 1622) shows a late moment when the height of action is just past, but its outcome more obvious. Andromeda is at the left, unchained but still almost naked. Perseus is in the process of claiming her hand as his reward, for which he is being crowned with laurels, as the victor. He wears his winged sandals, and holds the polished shield that still reflects Medusa’s face and snake hair. One of several putti (alluding to their forthcoming marriage) holds Hades’ helmet of invisibility, and much of the right of the painting is taken up by Pegasus, derived from a different version of the myth. At the lower edge is the dead Cetus, its fearsome mouth wide open.

The young and flourishing Rubens painted this remarkable Head of Medusa in about 1617. This shows the head after Perseus had placed it on a bed of seaweed once he had rescued Andromeda. He includes an exuberant mass of snakes, even a lizard and a scorpion, more of which appear to be forming in the blood exuding at the neck.

His superb The Rape of Proserpina (1636-38) shows a composite of Ovid’s account. Pluto’s face looks the part, his eyes bulging and staring at Minerva, who is trying to stop the girl from being abducted. Below the chariot, the basketful of flowers which Proserpine had been picking is scattered on the ground. Rubens shows irresistible movement to the right, as Pluto struggles to lift the girl into his chariot. Two winged Cupids are preparing to drive the black horses on, once the couple are secured inside.

Rubens’ surviving oil study of Pallas and Arachne (1636-7) tells this story in a conventional view. In the foreground, the angry Minerva is striking Arachne on the forehead with the shuttle. To the right is one of the images woven by Arachne, showing Europa riding Jupiter disguised as a white bull, an image that Rubens was familiar with from Titian’s Rape of Europa (c 1560-62), copied so well by Rubens in 1628-29. However, this version is different from either of those. Behind Minerva and Arachne, two women are sat at a loom, and it’s tempting to think that they too might represent the pair, in multiplex narrative. However, neither is dressed in red as is Arachne, leaving the question open.

His Tereus Confronted with the Head of his Son Itys (1636-38) shows the two sisters dressed as Bacchantes, one carrying her thyrsus with her left arm, and their breasts bared. Tereus is just reaching for his sword with his right hand, and his eyes are wide open in shock and rage. In the background, a door is open, and one of the court watches the horrific scene.

Rubens painted Boreas Abducting Orithyia in about 1620, when he was at the peak of his career. Boreas is shown in his classical guise, as a roughly bearded old man with wings. He is sweeping Orithyia up in his arms, while a cluster of Cupids are engaged in a snowball fight, a lovely touch of humour, and a subtle reference to winter.

This oil sketch of Aurora Abducting Cephalus was probably painted by Rubens in 1636-37, late in his life, for his workshop to complete as a painting for King Philip IV of Spain’s hunting lodge at Torre de la Parada, near Madrid. In addition to showing the willing Aurora trying to persuade the reluctant Cephalus to join her in her chariot, it includes some details differing from Ovid’s story: Diana’s hunting dog and javelin, given by Procris to her husband after their reconciliation, occurs later in the story, and may be intended as attributes to confirm his identity.

His oil sketch of Cephalus and Procris (1636-37), shows the couple just before Cephalus throws the fateful javelin at his wife.

Rubens’ initial oil sketch of The Fall of Icarus (1636) above, was presumably turned into a finished painting by his apprentice Jacob Peter Gowy. Icarus, his wings in tatters and holding his arms up as if trying to flap them, plunges past Daedalus. The boy’s mouth and eyes are wide open in shock and fear, and his body tumbles as it falls. Daedalus is still flying, though, his wings intact and fully functional; he looks towards the falling body of his son in alarm. They are high above a bay containing people with a fortified town at the edge of the sea.

As a primary colour, red is essential to most palettes, but it has also proved technically challenging to find pigments that are both intense and lasting. This weekend I look at the history of two contenders, in vermilion and crimson, names also steeped in history.

There’s one red that looks as brilliant today as when it was first brushed out five hundred or even two thousand years ago. It’s a pigment known to, and used by, the Romans, and in ancient China was not only used extensively in art, but was scattered in graves. Vermilion is one of the most toxic pigments, and over the last century has been displaced by cadmium red and more novel organic pigments. Look at many paintings made before 1870, and their reds are likely to be dominated by vermilion.

For a long time, vermilion paint was made using powdered cinnabar, naturally-occurring mercuric sulphide, and is then technically known as cinnabar rather than vermilion. Its manufacture from liquid mercury was probably brought from China to Europe, since when much of the vermilion pigment used in Europe has been synthetic.

The main source of cinnabar, and of the metal mercury, in Europe were the mines at Almadén in Spain. These were used by the Romans, and until their closure in 2000 had produced more cinnabar and mercury than any other location. In 1563, deposits were discovered in Huancavelica in Peru, and they were the second largest source over the following three hundred years. Other important sources have been located in China, Slovenia, Italy, Mexico, and the USA.

The mining of cinnabar has long been recognised as hazardous due to its great toxicity, something known as far back as the Romans. Locked in pigment particles in oil paint it’s less hazardous than in water-based paints such as egg tempera; it’s wisest not to use cinnabar or vermilion in dry form, as in pastels, even with good respiratory and skin protection. Even with careful handling, pigment residues pose a serious threat to the environment.

The brightest of the reds in Duccio’s Transfiguration, from the Maestà Predella Panels painted in 1307-11, have the distinctive colour of vermilion. It is often associated with holy people, and holy objects, and contrasts with the other brilliant pigment of ultramarine, which is conventionally used in the clothing of the Virgin Mary.

Its one unfortunate habit is a tendency to blacken, by forming the black version of cinnabar known as metacinnabar. This tends to happen more often in the thinner, less protective paint films of aqueous media, particularly egg tempera, as shown in Nardo di Cione’s Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint James from 1363-65. The lining of the clothing of the saint at the right uses vermilion, and has darkened in patches as a result.

Masaccio’s panel of Saints Jerome and John the Baptist from the Santa Maria Maggiore Altarpiece, from 1428-29, is another fine example of the use of a lot of vermilion (as cinnabar). The robes of Saint Jerome, on the left, may also show a little darkening in patches, but contrast well with the paler and pinker red of Saint John the Baptist at the right.

Cinnabar saw extensive and highly effective use by the van Eycks in The Ghent Altarpiece (c 1432). Because this was painted in oils, the chances of discolouration are much lower.

Botticelli used cinnabar in several passages in his Mystic Nativity (1500), where its persistent colour contrasts with his use of other red pigments, which haven’t retained their colour as well.

All the Masters and most other significant artists of the past used cinnabar, or vermilion when it was being manufactured in Europe by the early seventeenth century. Tintoretto was no exception, as shown in these two examples: Jupiter and Semele (1545) above, and The Origin of the Milky Way (c 1575), below.

Peter Paul Rubens’ centre panel of the Descent from the Cross (1612-14) in the huge triptych in Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, in Antwerp, is one of the most spectacular demonstrations of the use of vermilion, and its lasting chromatic brilliance.

Rembrandt is another Master who used vermilion to great effect, here in the dress of the woman at the right, in his Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-38). The colour draws attention to her as she is so shocked as to empty the goblet she is holding in her right hand. A duller colour might have allowed this dramatic action to pass unnoticed by the viewer.

Aelbert Cuyp’s Hilly River Landscape with a Horseman talking to a Shepherdess from about 1655-60 is one of the few oil paintings in which darkening of cinnabar has become obvious. The pigment serves well in the huntsman’s coat, but has darkened in patches.

William Hogarth played on another common association of the colour red in the third painting, The Inspection, from his series Marriage A-la-Mode (c 1743). Although in English we usually refer to a scarlet woman, rather than a vermilion one, his use of vermilion here is effective in portraying the woman as a prostitute.

Vermilion remained popular well into the latter half of the nineteenth century, long enough for it to grace the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the French Impressionists.

Although Claude Monet used just a few dabs and strokes of vermilion in his landmark painting Bathers at la Grenouillère (1869), he continued to use it well into the latter years of his career. By that time, though, the new cadmium reds were replacing vermilion, a process that is almost complete today, with cadmiums now being superceded by modern organic pigments.

Reference

RJ Gettens, RL Feller & WT Chase (1993) Artists’ Pigments, vol 2, ed Ashok Roy, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 75 3.

This is the last of four articles providing brief summaries and contents for this series of paintings telling myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and covers parts 55-74, from the foundation of Troy to the age of Augustus.

The foundation of Troy by Laomedon who failed to repay Apollo and Neptune for their help, so Neptune floods the city. Peleus marries the Nereid Thetis, with their wedding banquet on Mount Pelion, attended by the gods. Eris, goddess of discord, throws a golden apple into the group as a reward for the fairest, setting up the Judgement of Paris and leading to the war against Troy. Thetis gives birth to Achilles.

55 The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Chione boasts she is fairer than Diana, so the goddess shoots an arrow through her tongue, and she bleeds to death. Her father is turned into a hawk. Ceyx and Halcyone are turned into kingfishers. Aesacus is turned into a seabird after the death of Hesperia from a snake bite.

56 The hawk, kingfishers and a diver

After his judgement, Paris abducts Helen and triggers the war against Troy. The thousand ships of the Greeks gather at Aulis, where they’re delayed by storms. Their leader Agamemnon had offended Diana, so has to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to propitiate the goddess. At the last moment, Diana may have substituted a deer.

57 The sacrifice of Iphigenia

The Greek fleet sets sail against Troy, and when it arrives Protesilaus, the first to land, is killed by Hector. Achilles kills Cycnus, who is transformed into a swan. Caeneus was born a woman and raped by Neptune, for which she was turned into a male warrior. Nestor tells of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodame.

58 A wedding ruined by centaurs

Neptune’s hatred for Achilles leads to the warrior’s death from an arrow shot by Paris.

59 The death of Achilles

Ajax and Ulysses contest for the armour of Achilles, but Ajax loses and falls on his sword. His blood is turned into the purple hyacinth flower. Troy falls, Priam is killed, Hector’s son Astyanax is thrown from a tower, and Troy is sacked by the Greeks.

60 The sack of Troy

Queen Hecuba’s youngest son is murdered, and her daughter Polyxena is sacrificed to gain fair winds for the departing Greek fleet. Hecuba blinds Polymestor and is transformed into a dog. Aurora laments the death of her son Memnon.

61 Sacrifice of Polyxena

Aeneas flees Troy with his father Anchises and son Ascanius, but his wife Creusa dies before she can escape. They sail with a fleet of Trojan survivors to Delos, then on to Crete.

62 Aeneas flees Troy

Aeneas sails on to land on Sicily. Galatea tells the story of her love for Acis, and the jealousy of Polyphemus the Cyclops, who killed Acis, whose blood was turned into a stream.

63 The tragedy of Galatea

Glaucus pursues Scylla, and is refused, so he visits Circe, who turns the lower part of Scylla’s body into a pack of dogs, then finally into a rock in the Straits of Messina. Together with Charybdis the whirlpool, they pose a threat to Odysseus’ ship.

64 Scylla meets Glaucus

Aeneas is rowed through the straits only to be blown south to Carthage, where he has an affair with Queen Dido. When he departs she falls on a sword he gave her and dies on her funeral pyre. Aeneas returns north to land at Cumae to visit its Sibyl. The pair visit the underworld, where they meet the ghost of Anchises.

65 The Cumaean Sibyl

A survivor left from Ulysses’ crew tells of their encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, who had held them captive. Ulysses got him drunk and blinded his single eye. The crew escaped tied under a flock of sheep. As they fled in their ship, the Cyclops threw a huge rock at them.

66 The tale of Polyphemus

A second of Ulysses’ crew tells of their time on Circe’s island. She turned them into pigs, but they were transformed back after Ulysses and Circe married.

67 Circe and her swine

Circe transforms Picus, King of Latium, into a woodpecker. Aeneas arrives at Latium, where he has to fight Turnus for the throne. Aeneas’ ships are burned and transformed into sea nymphs. As the end of Aeneas’ life draws near, he undergoes apotheosis to become Indiges.

68 Apotheosis of Aeneas

Pomona, a dedicated gardener who shuns men, is courted unsuccessfully by Vertumnus, god of the seasons. He assumes the guise of an old woman to try to persuade her, and tells her the tragic story of Iphis and Anaxarete, who was transformed into a statue. Vertumnus finally succeeds.

69 Vertumnus and Pomona

Rome is founded by Romulus. Its war with the Sabines, the death of the Sabine King Tatius, and Romulus becomes ruler of both peoples. Romulus is transformed into the god Quirinus, with his wife Hersilia as the goddess Hora.

70 Romulus and the founding of Rome

Myscelus is saved from death and goes on to found Crotona, where Pythagoras lived in exile. Pythagoras expounds change and transformation underlying everything in nature, and the central theme of Metamorphoses. The virtues of vegetarianism. King Numa returns to Rome and establishes its laws.

71 Pythagoras and Numa

Plague strikes Rome. The oracle at Delphi tells the Romans to bring the god Aesculapius to the city. He is taken as a snake from Epidaurus to his temple on Tiber Island, and the Romans are saved from plague.

72 Plague and Aesculapius

The assassination of Julius Caesar, who then undergoes apotheosis.

73 Julius Caesar

Jupiter foretells the accomplishments of Augustus, including success in battle, the fall of Cleopatra, and growth of the empire. The fate of Ovid in banishment to Tomis on the Black Sea.

74 The Age of Augustus

This is the third of four articles providing brief summaries and contents for this series of paintings telling myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and covers parts 37-54, from the fall of Icarus to King Midas.

Daedalus and his son Icarus try to escape Crete using wings of feathers and wax. Icarus flies too near the sun, his wings melt and he falls to his death. Daedalus’ nephew is transformed into a partridge.

37 The fall of Icarus

Calydon troubled by a wild boar. Many heroes hunt the animal, and Meleager is successful. He shares the glory of his prize with Atalanta, but his uncles take the prize, so Meleager kills them both.

38 The Calydonian Boar Hunt

Meleager’s mother Althaea avenges the deaths of her brothers by throwing a log on the fire, causing her son’s death. His sisters are turned into birds. Theseus travels home from the boar hunt and is entertained by Achelous, who explains how nymphs were transformed into the islands of the Echinades.

39 The feast of Achelous

Lelex tells of Jupiter and Mercury seeking hospitality when visiting Phrygia. Only the humble and poor couple Philemon and Baucis entertain them. The gods save them from a flood that drowns everyone else. They’re later transformed into intertwining oak and lime trees.

40 Hospitality to strangers and virtue rewarded

Achelous tells those at his banquet of three shape-shifters: Proteus the old man of the sea, Erysichthon who sold his daughter to assuage his hunger until he consumed his own body, and Achelous himself.

41 Shape-shifters and the Old Man of the Sea

Achelous and Hercules wrestle for the hand of Deianira. Achelous turns himself into a bull, and Hercules wrenches off one of his horns, which becomes cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty.

42 Wrestling for the Horn of Plenty

Hercules marries Deianira, but the centaur Nessus tries to abduct her, so Hercules kills him. Nessus gives Deianira some of his blood, and tricks her later into impregnating one of Hercules’ shirts with it, causing him to incinerate himself on a pyre. He is then turned into a god.

43 The death of Hercules

The birth of Hercules made difficult by Juno and Lucina. Other myths of Hercules as an infant.

44 The birth of Hercules

Dryope picks lotus flowers, and is punished by transformation into a Lotus Tree. Byblis dissolves into a spring after falling in love with her twin brother. A daughter raised as Iphis, a boy, who was transformed into a man immediately before marrying the woman Ianthe.

45 Dryope, Byblis and Iphis

Orpheus marries Eurydice, who is bitten by a snake and dies. He travels to the underworld and pleads for her to be allowed to return with him. That’s approved, provided he doesn’t look back. Near the end of their return journey, he does look back, and she fades away back into the underworld. He then shuns women for three years in his grief.

46 Orpheus and Eurydice

Cyparissus befriends a stag, then accidentally kills it, and in his grief is transformed into a cypress tree, now grown near cemeteries. Orpheus tells of the young Ganymede, who was abducted by Jupiter and taken to Mount Olympus to be cupbearer to the gods.

47 The cypress tree, and the abduction of Ganymede

Hyacinthus, lover of Apollo, is killed by the god’s discus, and transformed into the purple hyacinth flower.

48 Killed by Apollo’s discus

Pygmalion rejects libidinous behaviour in women, and remains celibate. He carves a statue of a woman in ivory, and asks Venus for a bride like her. His statue is transformed into a woman, they marry, and have a daughter Paphos.

49 Galatea transformed from a statue

Myrrha is made pregnant by her father following a deception. He tries to kill her, but she flees and calls on the gods, who transform her into a myrrh tree. Nevertheless, her baby is born, and becomes Adonis.

50 The making of myrrh and birth of Adonis

Venus tells Adonis of the story of Atalanta, who had been told not to marry, and became a fast runner. Hippomenes challenges her to a race for her hand in marriage. He tricks her during that by dropping three golden apples provided by Venus, and beats her to the finish as a result. He didn’t thank Venus for her help, so the couple make love in a shrine to Cybele. As punishment they are transformed into lions to draw Cybele’s chariot.

51 The race between Hippomenes and Atalanta

Despite the warnings of his lover Venus, Adonis goes hunting, is gored in the groin by a wild boar, and dies. His blood is turned into the red anemone.

52 Death of Adonis

Orpheus is attacked by a mob of Bacchantes, torn limb from limb, and dies. His remains are dispersed into rivers, and his soul reunited with Eurydice. The Bacchantes are transformed into an oak wood.

53 The death of Orpheus

Bacchus grants the wish of King Midas, and everything he touches is transformed into gold. This proves a disaster, so Bacchus removes that gift. Midas loses a music contest with Apollo, for which he is given ass’s ears.

54 How Midas got his touch and his ears

As one of the primary colours, yellow is a vital paint for artists. For many centuries there weren’t any particularly good greens that were also enduring, so many oil and watercolour paintings have relied on the mixture of blue and yellow to generate most of their greens. This weekend I show and tell the stories of three of the yellow pigments that have featured in well-known paintings. Today’s is about one pigment that went missing from the palette for two hundred years, and tomorrow I’ll consider two other yellows with unusual histories.

For much of that period many of the pigments used in artists’ paints were closely guarded secrets. Their precise manner of preparation, even the source of their ingredients, were considered part of the craft of paint-making, whether performed by a supplier or in the artist’s workshop. On at least one occasion, this led to the loss of a pigment from the palette: Lead-Tin Yellow, widely used in many of the greatest works of art prior to 1750, vanished until its rediscovery in 1940.

Like several other pigments, Lead-Tin Yellow seems to have originated in glassmaking, and there’s some evidence of its use as a pigment in glass made as early as about 400 CE. Its earliest use in paintings probably dates back to Giotto in about 1300, following which it became extremely popular.

My earliest example is this painting in egg tempera attributed to Jacopo di Cione: Noli me tangere from around 1368-70. Examination of the brilliant yellow lining to Christ’s robe has shown that its pigment is Lead-Tin Yellow of type II. That is a variant consisting of a lead-tin oxide with free tin and silicon that’s more strongly associated with glass-making, and prepared slightly differently from the ‘purer’ type I.

Both types of Lead-Tin Yellow have proved robust and stable pigments in a range of different binders, including egg tempera and oils.

The centre panel of Rogier van der Weyden’s St Columba Altarpiece, showing the Adoration of the Magi, from about 1455, has been found to contain Lead-Tin Yellow in the rich yellow sleeve of the king in the centre. This is shown better in the detail below.

By about 1450, Lead-Tin Yellow type I was increasingly being used in paint. For example, the infant Christ’s lemon yellow dress in Ambrogio Bergognone’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena (c 1490) has been found to contain this ‘purer’ type.

Another very similar painting by Bergognone, his The Virgin and Child from 1488-90, has not, as far as I can tell, been examined to test for the use of Lead-Tin Yellow, but I strongly suspect the infant Christ’s dress here contains the pigment too. This is shown particularly well in the detail below.

Although believed to be a stable colour, one of the more surprising examples of the use of Lead-Tin Yellow is in one version of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin with the Infant Saint John the Baptist adoring the Christ Child accompanied by an Angel, better-known as The Virgin of the Rocks. The panel from the S. Francesco Altarpiece of Milan, painted between 1491-1508 and now in the National Gallery in London, is shown here.

The light brown lining of the Virgin’s blue cloak, shown in the detail below, contains Lead-Tin Yellow type I. The version in the Louvre, in which that lining is a bright yellow, doesn’t appear to have been reported on.

Yellow is a prominent colour in the paintings in Paolo Veronese’s series The Allegory of Love. In this the third, Respect from about 1575, Lead-Tin Yellow type II has been found in the primrose yellow impasto on the man’s tunic.

Veronese used type I in the first of the series, and type II in the third and fourth, suggesting that he used different sources of supply for his pigments over this period. The two types appear visually indistinguishable, and don’t seem to handle differently in oil paint.

Several of Peter Paul Rubens’ paintings, including his Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt from about 1615, have been found to contain Lead-Tin Yellow, although I don’t know which type he used.

Another fine example of the extensive use of Lead-Tin Yellow, here of type I, is in Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-38). Many of Rembrandt’s paintings have been found to contain the pigment, but here it has been applied in thick impasto to model the highlights on Belshazzar’s cloak.

Rembrandt here used a double ground, over which he applied earth pigments before applying the uppermost layers of lighter colours, including Lead-Tin Yellow, to model the detail. These are shown in the detail below.

Jan Vermeer is another of the Old Masters whose paintings often contain Lead-Tin Yellow. In The Milkmaid (c 1660), for example, it accounts for much of the pale yellow of the woman’s bodice.

What happened next is rather strange. During the first half of the eighteenth century, Lead-Tin Yellow declined markedly in popularity, and by 1750 it appears to have been replaced by other, sometimes less stable, pigments, including Naples Yellow (highly toxic lead antimonate). Once replaced, the recipes for its manufacture appear to have been lost, and its use was forgotten.

During the eighteenth century, there were also changes in the supply of pigments and paints to artists, and by the nineteenth century most were sourced from specialist colourmen, who appear not to have known about Lead-Tin Yellow as a pigment. By the time that commercial manufacture of oil and other paints became widespread in the late nineteenth century, the pigment had been long forgotten. This was aided by uncertainty over its traditional name, which led to confusion with the pigment Massicot (lead oxide or Lead Yellow).

It was Richard Jacobi, working at the Doerner Institute in Munich in 1940, who stumbled across the pigment when analysing yellow paints in Old Master paintings. He reported his radical findings in 1941, and from the late 1940s and 1950s onwards paint analyses looking for it have been performed quite widely, and have found its extensive use in works between 1300 and 1750. Since then it has even been re-introduced in some commercial paint ranges.

Reference

Hermann Kühn (1993) Artists’ Pigments, vol 2, ed Ashok Roy, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 75 3.

This is the second of four articles providing brief summaries and contents for this series of paintings telling myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and covers parts 19-36, from Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda to Theseus killing the Minotaur.

Perseus in mid-flight over North Africa with the head of Medusa. Atlas refuses his request for lodging and transformed into a mountain. Perseus finds Andromeda chained to a rock, frees her and kills the sea-monster. Blood from Medusa’s head transformed into coral.

19 Perseus rescues Andromeda

Perseus marries Andromeda. In his wedding speech, Perseus gives his account of killing Medusa. Medusa had been raped by Neptune and punished by Minerva in the transformation of her hair into snakes.

20 Perseus kills Medusa

The wedding feast disrupted by Phineus, who claims Andromeda was stolen from him. They fight, Perseus turning them into statues using Medusa’s face. The couple return to Argos, and Minerva to Helicon, where the Muses tell her of a spring created by the hoof-print of Pegasus. The Pierides challenge the Muses to a story contest.

21 The fate of Phineus, and the Muses on Helicon

The story of Proserpine sung by Calliope the Muse. Venus uses Cupid to make Pluto fall for the young Proserpine. He abducts her to Hades. The nymph Cyan fails to stop them and melts away into a pool of tears. Ceres, Proserpine’s mother, told by Arethusa of her abduction, and appeals to Jupiter. As the girl had nibbled a pomegranate while in Hades, she can’t be freed, so spends winter with Pluto in Hades, and summer with Ceres.

22 Proserpine’s fate

Calliope tells of Arethusa’s attempted rape by Alpheus, and her transformation into a stream joined by Alpheus’ river to Diana’s island of Ortygia. Ceres visits Triptolemus to give him seed for unproductive land. Lyncus tries to kill him when he’s asleep, and transformed into a lynx.

23 Arethusa, Lyncus and the magpies

Arachne boasts that she’s a better weaver than Minerva, so they compete. Arachne shows images critical of the gods, so Minerva tears up her work and strikes her. Arachne tries to hang herself, and Minerva transforms her into a spider.

24 Arachne’s fate

Niobe boasts she’s more worthy than Latona, who tells her children Apollo and Diana to punish the mortal. The pair slaughter Niobe’s seven sons and seven daughters. Niobe transformed into marble on a mountain peak, forming the River Achelous.

25 The slaughter of Niobe’s children

Pregnant with Apollo and Diana, Latona goes to Lycia to give birth. Afterwards she seeks water, but locals prevent her, so are turned into frogs as punishment.

26 Latona and the Lycian peasants

The satyr Marsyas challenges Apollo to a music contest judged by the Muses. The god wins, and exacts the penalty of flaying the satyr alive. Tears of satyrs and fauns create a new river.

27 The music contest

King Tereus of Thrace rapes his sister-in-law Philomela, cuts out her tongue and abandons her in a forest cabin. She tells her story in her weaving, is rescued, and with Tereus’ wife they kill and cook the king’s son, and trick Tereus into eating his own son. The sisters transformed into swallows, and Tereus into a hoopoe.

28 Philomela’s revenge

The north wind Boreas abducts his betrothed Orithyia.

29 Boreas and Orithyia

Medea falls in love with Jason and helps him in the three tasks he must perform to win the Golden Fleece. They sail home with their prize.

30 Jason, Medea and the Golden Fleece

Jason asks Medea to rejuvenate his ageing father Aeson, which she does successfully.

31 Rejuvenating Aeson

Medea tricks the daughters of Pelias into rejuvenating their father, but instead they boil him alive. Medea flees, is abandoned by Jason, murders her two sons, and marries King Aegeus of Athens.

32 Medea’s murder by proxy

King Aegeus makes Aethra pregnant and returns to Athens. His son Theseus grows up and travels to Athens to prove his paternity. Medea tries to trick the king into poisoning his son. When that fails, she flees, leaving Theseus to become a hero.

33 The origins of Theseus

War between King Aegeus of Athens and King Minos of Crete. Juno’s reprisal against the nymph Aegina in a plague, killing the people of Aegina, then repopulated from ants transformed into warriors, the Myrmidons, who later fight in the Trojan War.

34 Minos and the Myrmidons

Cephalus, envoy from Athens, tells how he accidentally killed his wife Procris with his javelin. She had suspected him of infidelity with an imaginary zephyr, so was following him when he was hunting. He mistook her for a wild beast that had been eating the livestock of Thebes.

35 The tragedy of Cephalus and Procris

King Minos attacks the city of King Nisus, whose daughter Scylla betrays Nisus leading to his defeat. She fails to win the love of Minos. Nisus changed into an osprey, Scylla into a seabird. Minos returns to Crete where he can’t escape the shame of his wife’s bestiality with a bull and birth of the Minotaur. Minos gets Daedalus to build a maze to contain the Minotaur, then feeds it every nine years with young Athenians. Minos’ daughter Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. Theseus abducts her to Naxos, where he abandons her. She meets Bacchus and marries.

36 Theseus and the Minotaur

This is the first of four articles providing brief summaries and contents for this series of paintings telling myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and covers parts 1-18, from the start to the fall of the house of Thebes.

About Ovid and his life; his other writings, and his banishment. References.

Introduction

The aim of the Metamorphoses, about telling tales of bodies changed into new forms. The origin of the world from chaos, through a summary of pre-history and the fall of the Titans. Lycaon transformed into a wolf by Jupiter. Jupiter’s proposal to destroy humanity.

1 Creation and Lycaon’s cannibalism

The flood, and its survivors Deucalion and Pyrrha. Stones turned into men and women of the next generation. Apollo destroys the Python, and institutes the Pythian Games.

2 The flood and the Python

Apollo inflamed with love for Daphne, and his attempt to rape her. Daphne saved by transformation into the laurel.

3 Daphne becomes the laurel

Jupiter’s rape of Io, and her transformation into a white cow. Detected by Juno, who puts Argus to keep a watch on her. Inset story of Pan’s attempt to rape Syrinx, who is transformed into reeds. Mercury kills Argus, whose eyes decorate the peacock. Io as a cow driven to Egypt, and there returned to human form, to be worshipped as a goddess.

4 Io as a cow, the eyes of Argus, and Syrinx

Phaëthon son of Phoebus persuades his father to let him drive the sun chariot. Disaster strikes, Phaëthon is killed after much of the earth is burned by the sun. His sisters transformed into poplar trees, and their tears into amber. His friend transformed into a swan.

5 Fall of Phaëthon

Callisto raped by Jupiter in the form of Diana, cast out from Diana’s followers, and transformed by Juno into a bear. Jupiter transforms Callisto and their son into the constellations of the Great and Little Bears.

6 Callisto victimised

The white raven turned to black for telling on others. Minerva leaves a basket containing the infant Ericthonius with Aglauros, who discovers the basket also contains a snake. The crow downgraded in the order of birds for reporting that to Minerva. Apollo kills his unfaithful lover Coronis, but rescues his unborn child, who becomes Aesculapius.

7 Gossip and the death of Coronis

Mercury’s theft of Apollo’s cattle, and Battus turned to stone. Mercury’s love for Herse, and her jealous sister Aglauros turned to stone.

8 Aglauros turned into stone

Jupiter in the form of a bull abducts and rapes Europa.

9 The abduction of Europa

Europa’s brother Cadmus directed to found a city. His men devoured by a monster, who is killed by Cadmus’ javelin. He sows the dragon’s teeth, which grow into warriors, who help Cadmus found Thebes.

10 Cadmus and the founding of Thebes

Cadmus’ grandson Actaeon stumbles into Diana when hunting. He’s transformed into a stag, and killed by his own dogs.

11 Actaeon changed into a stag

Jupiter gets Semele pregnant, and she insists on him revealing himself to her in his full divine glory. She is consumed by flames, and her unborn baby is sewn into Jupiter’s thigh to be born as the god Bacchus.

12 Death of Semele and Jupiter’s surrogate pregnancy

Tiresias changed from man to woman, then back again. Blinded by Juno as punishment, but given prophetic powers by Jupiter. Echo too loquacious for Juno, so her speech is limited to repeating the words of others. Echo falls in love with Narcissus, but he falls in love with his own reflection, dies and is transformed into narcissus flowers.

13 Echo and Narcissus

Pentheus warned to worship Bacchus, but he defies the god’s cult, and is torn limb from limb by his own mother and sisters, as foreseen by Tiresias.

14 Death of Pentheus

Two lovers meet outside their city, but she arrives first and flees from a lioness. He sees her shawl bloodied by the lioness, assumes his lover is dead, and kills himself with his own sword. His blood changes the colour of mulberry fruit from white to red. She finds him dying, and kills herself.

15 Pyramus and Thisbe

The adultery of Venus and Mars. How the Sun was first to witness that. In revenge for the Sun telling Vulcan of her adultery, Venus makes the Sun fall in love with Leucothoë and rape her. Her father buries her alive, and she’s transformed into a frankincense tree. Clytie’s unrequited love for the Sun, leading to her transformation into a sunflower.

16 Adultery and Unrequited love

The nymph Salmacis desires Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, but he won’t oblige. They are transformed into a single body, both man and woman.

17 Hermaphroditus

Summary of the fall of the house of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Juno seeks vengeance on Ino by summoning the Fates from the underworld to drive Ino’s husband Athamas mad. He kills one of their infant sons, she leaps from a cliff with the other in her arms. Venus intervenes, and Neptune transforms them into gods. Cadmus and his wife leave Thebes, and are transformed into snakes.

18 Ino and the fall of the house of Cadmus