The Eurasian wolf has been subject to a general campaign of extermination across much of Europe since the Middle Ages. The last in England was killed by the end of the fifteenth century, in Scotland in 1684, Denmark in 1772, and Norway in 1973. This hasn’t deterred artists from reminding Europeans of their sinister reputation.

Early in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, he tells of Lycaon, who was transformed into a wolf by Jupiter as punishment for cheating him.

Jan Cossiers’ impressive Jupiter and Lycaon from about 1640 shows Jupiter’s eagle vomiting thunderbolts at Lycaon, who is hurrying away as he is being transformed into a wolf, becoming the prototype for the werewolf of the future (see below).

Wolves got a better press in the popular account of the origins of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome. Numitor’s daughter, a Vestal Virgin, was discovered to be pregnant. Although that would by tradition have led to her death, Amulius’ daughter interceded, and she was merely kept in solitary confinement. She gave birth to twin boys, who were superhuman in their size and beauty. Amulius ordered one of his servants to take the twins away and drown them in the river, but they were put first into a trough that functioned as a boat. As a result they were washed ashore downstream still alive. A she-wolf then fed the babies, and a woodpecker watched over them; both were later considered to be sacred to the god Mars.

One of the frescoes in the Palazzo Magnani, probably painted by Ludovico Carracci and/or Annibale Carracci, shows the She-Wolf Suckling Romulus and Remus (1589-92). The twins are still inside the trough in which they had survived their trip down the river, and on the opposite bank a woodpecker is keeping a close watch.

Peter Paul Rubens shows Romulus and Remus being discovered by Faustulus, in his painting of 1615-16. Not only is the she-wolf taking care of the twins, but a family of woodpeckers are bringing worms and grubs to feed them, and there are empty shells and a little crab on the small beach as additional tasty tidbits.

Despite that, the wolf had a fearsome reputation in Europe, no doubt amplified by those who sought its extinction.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s The Good Shepherd from 1616 shows a shepherd being attacked by a wolf, as he tries to save his flock, which are running in panic into the nearby wood.

Christian associations can be more positive, particularly in the legend of Saint Francis of Assisi and the wolf of Agubbio, or Gubbio, a small mediaeval town in the Apennine Mountains in central Italy. The saint did a deal with the wolf, where the animal would stop terrorising the town, in return for its people providing it with food.

Luc-Olivier Merson’s marvellous painting of The Wolf of Agubbio from 1877 is set in the town’s central piazza, where it’s a cold winter’s day, so cold that the waters of its grand fountain are frozen as they cascade over its stonework. As the townspeople go about their business, there’s the large wolf of its title with a prominent halo, standing at the door of the butcher’s shop. Leaning out from that door, the butcher is handing a piece of meat to the wolf, as shown in the detail below.

A wolf may also appear in association with the Christian virtue of charity, as depicted by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.

His Charity from 1887 is a personification of one of the seven Christian virtues set in timeless classical terms. She is the mother of twins, one of whom she holds by her breast. She is clasping the back of the neck of a dark wolf, lying beside her, adding an unusual touch. This had apparently become a popular motif, and only nine years previously had been painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in contrasting Academic style.

A wolf is one of the three fearsome animals to threaten Dante in the opening of his Divine Comedy. Camille Corot’s painting of Dante and Virgil from 1859 shows Dante as he started to walk up a hill, only to find his way blocked first by a leopard, then by a lion, and finally by a wolf.

Wolves have made their way into other legends and fables.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s undated The Wolf and the Lamb tells a popular story (Perry 155, La Fontaine I.10) in which a wolf tries to justify killing a lamb on the strength of its criminal record. The lamb proves each crime claimed by the wolf to have been impossible, so the wolf says that the offences must have been committed by someone else in the lamb’s family, therefore it can proceed to kill the lamb anyway.

Gustave Moreau revisited Aesop’s fables late in his career. The Wolf and the Lamb of 1889 is, I believe, a monochrome image of a painting made in full colour, whose wolf looks more threatening than Oudry’s.

Mediaeval folk mythology developed stories of humans turning into wolves, although these were temporary transformations associated with cannibalistic episodes. They became progressively refined and popularised into the Gothic ‘horror’ stories of werewolves feeding on human blood, although those didn’t reach painting until the twentieth century.

Stuart Pearson Wright’s magnificent Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008) was inspired by the movie An American Werewolf in London (1981), itself a further transformation of werewolf stories into comedy horror form. The artist intended “to explore that uncharted place where the mystery and sublime of the romantic landscape meets the high camp and melodrama of Hammer horror”, which has come a long way from Ovid’s original story of lycanthropy.

Finally, wolves can sometimes be depicted as hunting quarry.

Peter Paul Rubens’ Wolf and Fox Hunt from about 1616 is one of his brilliant series of hunting scenes, here featuring two large wolves.

The good news is that, since the 1950s, populations of wolves in Europe have been recovering, and with the exception of the British Isles, they’re gradually re-establishing themselves in those countries that had previously hunted them to death.

From their tragic encounter with tormented souls in the Suicide Wood, Virgil leads Dante onto a barren and sandy plain, where groups of spirits are in different postures, naked under steady showers of flakes of fire. These fall on their flesh, and set the sand afire underneath them. They are being punished for their differing acts of violence against God: blasphemers lie flat on their backs, sodomites are moving at all times, and usurers crouch with purses strung from their necks.

The two talk with Capaneus, a huge man who was once a powerful king and waged war against the city of Thebes, and a blasphemer who was struck by a thunderbolt for his arrogance towards the (classical and pagan) gods.

Among the sodomites is the prominent Guelph encyclopaedist Brunetto Latini (c 1220-94), who may well have been Dante’s mentor at one time. Also identified are Priscian a Latin grammarian, Francesco d’Accorso a legal scholar, and Andrea de’ Mozzi a bishop of Florence, together with three other Florentines.

Virgil explains some more of the topography of Hell, how waters originating from a statue on Mount Idaeus (Ida) on the island of Crete flow down to form its three principal rivers, the Acheron, Styx and Phlegethon. The statue of the Old Man of Crete has a gold head, silver arms, brass torso, and iron below, apart from a terracotta foot. This follows the mythical ‘ages of mankind’ in descent, and its tears feed the waters of Hell.

Dante is next led down towards a vile monster with the face of an honest man but the body of a serpent, its body seemingly tattooed with knots and whorls, and a sting at the end of its great tail: this is Geryon, in classical myth a cruel king who was killed by Hercules, and here forming an image of fraud.

Before reaching that monster, the pair see some usurers on the ground. They are identified as contemporary members of prominent Florentine and Paduan families known for their riches and usury.

Virgil then jumps onto Geryon’s back, and encourages Dante to have courage to join him there. Once they have both boarded, Virgil tells Geryon to fly off, and the monster carries them down through a hundred spiralling turns to the foot of a high cliff.

Virgil and Dante have now descended to circle eight.

The artists

William Blake (1757–1827) was a British visionary painter and illustrator whose last and incomplete work was an illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy for the painter John Linnell. Most of his works shown in this series were created for that, although he did draw and paint scenes during his earlier career. I have a major series on his work here.

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was the leading French illustrator of the nineteenth century, whose paintings are still relatively unknown. Early in his career, he produced a complete set of seventy illustrations for translations of the Inferno, first published in 1857 and still in current use. They were followed in 1867 by more illustrations for Purgatorio and Paradiso. This article looks at his paintings.

John Flaxman (1755–1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman who occasionally painted too. When he was in Rome between 1787-91, he produced drawings for book illustrations, including a set of 111 for an edition of The Divine Comedy. In 1810, he was appointed the Professor of Sculpture to the Royal Academy in London, and in 1817 made drawings to illustrate Hesiod, which were engraved by William Blake.

Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1839) was an Austrian landscape painter, who worked mainly in Neoclassical style. During his second stay in Rome, he was commissioned to paint frescos in the Villa Massimi on the walls of the Dante Room there, which remain one of the most florid visual accounts of Dante’s Inferno. He completed those between 1824-29. He also appears to have drawn a set of illustrations for Dante’s Inferno in about 1808.

Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835) was a Roman illustrator and engraver who provided illustrations for a great many books, and specialised in the city of Rome. He made 145 prints to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy, most probably in the early nineteenth century.

Francesco Scaramuzza (1803–1886) was an Italian painter who specialised in mythological and historical narratives. He became obsessed with Dante’s Divine Comedy, and for much of his career worked on producing paintings and drawings of its scenes. He worked mainly in Parma, in Italy.

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) was the greatest Danish sculptor, and one of the foremost in Europe. He worked most of his life in Italy, although the Thorvaldsens Museum with much of his work is in the city of Copenhagen, in a place of honour by the Christiansborg Palace. From humble origins, he trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Art, where he was extremely successful. He arrived in Rome in 1797, and remained there until 1838, when he was welcomed as a returning hero in Copenhagen.

References

Wikipedia
Danteworlds

Robin Kirkpatrick (trans) (2012) Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, Penguin Classics. ISBN 978 0 141 19749 4.
Richard Lansing (ed) (2000) The Dante Encyclopedia, Routledge. ISBN 978 0 415 87611 7.
Guy P Raffa (2009) The Complete Danteworlds, A Reader’s Guide to the Divine Comedy, Chicago UP. ISBN 978 0 2267 0270 4.
Prue Shaw (2014) Reading Dante, From Here to Eternity, Liveright. ISBN 978 1 63149 006 4.

In yesterday’s article, I looked at how William Blake’s late painted etching of The Ancient of Days isn’t what it seems, and tells a story unique to Blake’s personal mythology. This article looks an earlier work that until relatively recently was misidentified as a painting of Hecate.

According to Blake’s mythology, Enitharmon is partner, twin, and inspiration to Los, and mother of Orc. She is spiritual beauty, and her image here was most probably modelled on the artist’s wife Catherine. In The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (c 1795), she establishes her Woman’s World, with a false religion of chastity and vengeance, which is Blake’s view of the 1800 year history of the ‘official’ Christian church.

As the moon to the sun of Los, she is accompanied by symbols of night, such as the owl and bat. She also plays the role of Eve, which may explain the head of a snake peering out towards her. The donkey eating thistles underlines Blake’s rejection of the ‘official’ church, and the two figures behind Enitharmon face in and bow their heads in guilt. The book on which Enitharmon’s left hand rests is Urizen’s ‘Book of brass’, in which his repressive laws are laid down.

If you didn’t know Blake’s mythology, identifying her as Hecate seems reasonable.

Stéphane Mallarmé’s drawing of a classical sculpture of Hecate, Greek Goddess of the Crossroads was engraved for his illustrated account of classical mythology published in 1880. This is her most conventional representation: fully triple-bodied, holding a key at the left, and torches to the left and right, with a symbol of the moon on her forehead.

Hecate has also been depicted more like Eve with a serpent, as seen in Francesco de’ Rossi’s fresco of her from 1543-45. He hints at her triple body with the heads on which she is standing, and she wears a coronet of the moon, her association with night, hence with the owl in Blake’s painting.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau flies his owls in support of a personification of the mythical Night (1883), as do others painting similar motifs. But the owl is also famously associated with Minerva.

Hendrik Goltzius shows a classical and fairly complete set of her attributes in his Minerva (as the Personification of Wisdom) from 1611: the owl, her distinctive helmet, here decorated with olive leaves, a spear, books, and great beauty.

Blake’s mythology has an elaborate and sometimes opaque genealogy. Los and his emanation Enitharmon have children, the first of whom is Orc. As Los is spiritual revolution, so Orc is revolution in the material world. Orc hates his father Los in an Oedipus complex of love for his mother Enitharmon. As shown in Los and Orc (c 1792–3) above, Los is driven to bind Orc to a rock on the top of Mount Atlas, using the chain of jealousy. Orc’s limbs then become rooted in the rock, pinning him there. This cannot prevent Orc’s imagination from raging, though, and permeating everything.

One of the fundamental concepts in Blake’s mythology is that of pairings: there are many elements with both male and female counterparts, the latter being termed emanations. These might take the generation of Eve from Adam as their prototype. Nowhere does Blake envisage a pantheon of gods, but stretches the Jewish and Christian concepts of a single God, going far beyond the Christian Trinity. These include expressions of God associated with particular eras, such as the vengeful God of the Old Testament, and those of particular interpretations that Blake deprecates.

William Blake wasn’t the only artist in Britain at the time who painted new stories. Henry Fuseli did too.

Fuseli’s painting of Percival Delivering Belisane from the Enchantment of Urma (1783) shows a narrative that the artist had invented for this painting. It appears to be one of a series, although only one other work has been identified as part of that, and that is only known from a print of 1782. He also preceded this series with a single painting of Ezzelin and Meduna (1779), referring to another unique narrative, which doesn’t appear to have any associated works.

Fuseli provides the viewer with a rich array of ‘Gothic’ narrative elements to form their own account of the story. There are visions of faces in the distance on the left, chains leading to an unseen figure apparently manacled into a bed at the right, Percival swinging a sword above his head, to strike the cloaked figure of Urma in the left foreground, and a beautiful young woman, presumably Belisane, embraced by Percival’s left arm, kneeling on the floor.

References

Blunt, A (1959) The Art of William Blake, Oxford UP.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Damon, S Foster (2013) A Blake Dictionary, the Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, updated edn., Dartmouth College Press. ISBN 978 1 61168 443 8.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

One of the golden rules in narrative painting is to tell stories that the viewer is already familiar with, because of the limitations imposed by still images. By the middle of the nineteenth century, though, artists were breaking that rule in what became a new sub-genre of the ‘problem picture’, with open-ended narrative encouraging the viewer to construct their own stories. William Blake was a precursor to that in some of his paintings, and this weekend I look at two examples that try to tell stories we’re unfamiliar with.

At first sight, Blake’s painted etching The Ancient of Days from about 1821 might represent the Christian God seen as master craftsman, forming the world out of the darkness below heaven. That would be an innovative but hardly revolutionary interpretation of the opening of the book of Genesis.

That wasn’t Blake’s intention, though. This represents Urizen, one of many figures from his own mythology, and documented only in the artist’s writings. There, Urizen symbolises reason, his name most probably a semi-conscious pun on your reason. This painting shows Urizen the architect, creating the world using his compasses. He goes on to have the role of the jealous and vengeful god of the Old Testament, but his desire for dominion brings about his downfall into a state of Satan.

Representations of God as architect aren’t common, but Blake’s would be by no means unique.

This frontispiece to a Bible Moralisée from around 1220-30 shows the Christian God as architect, using his compasses during the creation of the world. The compasses continue in various modern symbols, including those that feature in freemasonry, and in its references to the Supreme Being as the Great Architect of the Universe.

Urizen typically appears with long and streaming white hair and beard, as in Blake’s plates throughout his First Book of Urizen from 1796.

But Urizen isn’t the only figure from Blake’s mythology who has long white hair and beard: above is Elohim Creating Adam from 1795, for example.

In Blake’s God Judging Adam also from about 1795, both figures sport long, flowing white hair and beards, which appear to be markers not so much of their ages or identities, but of the ancient nature of events.

Long white hair and beards are of course a long-established tradition in visual art: here is a contemporary example of Tiresias, the blind prophet of Apollo at Thebes, in Henry Fuseli’s Tiresias Appears to Ulysses During the Sacrifice (1780-85). Fuseli was Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, and a great influence on Blake.

Characteristic of the figure of Urizen in The Ancient of Days is the unusual way in which the figure’s hair and beard stream as if in a strong wind, the figure’s nakedness, and its posture.

This can be traced most immediately to a major work by another contemporary painter who was highly influential on Blake: James Barry’s King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia (1786–8). Barry was also Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, and the similarities between King Lear’s white hair and beard here, and those of Blake’s Urizen in The Ancient of Days, are striking.

Blunt found another potential source in Pellegrino Tibaldi’s figure of Neptune (1549-51) in his fresco showing the story of Ulysses in the Palazzo Poggi. Although now relatively obscure, Blake saw fresco as being ‘true’ art, and was long an enthusiast of frescos, even if he saw few. A contemporary popular book of prints of frescos included an engraving of Tibaldi’s Neptune, so this image would have been accessible to both Blake and Barry.

It’s likely that Tibaldi’s Neptune was itself a reference to Michelangelo’s earlier frescos in the Sistine Chapel: the detail above showing God creating the sun and moon, and even more important that below showing the creation of Adam (c 1511).

Blake knew both of these sections of the Sistine Chapel frescos well, having engraved them previously. They also link to Blake’s own Elohim Creating Adam above.

Blake’s Urizen the architect, seen creating the world using his compasses, is distinct from both God and Elohim in his nakedness. In Blake’s written narrative, the distinction between Urizen and Elohim becomes more blurred, when the former goes on to have the role of the jealous and vengeful god of the Old Testament, until his desire for dominion brings about his downfall.

It may be tempting to assume that, just because Blake’s paintings appear so original and different, they originate entirely from his own mind. However, Blake was just as likely to borrow from and refer to other visual art as any other master.

References

Blunt, A (1959) The Art of William Blake, Oxford UP.
Butlin, M (1981) The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 02550 7.
Damon, S Foster (2013) A Blake Dictionary, the Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, updated edn., Dartmouth College Press. ISBN 978 1 61168 443 8.
Vaughan, William (1999) William Blake, British Artists, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84976 190 1.

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.

If you see a well-muscled man brandishing a large olive-wood club and wearing a lion-skin, you can be fairly certain he is Hercules, or Heracles if you prefer the original Greek. He’s the ultimate high-testosterone uncouth hero, who doesn’t understand why others wear fabrics, and relies on his club to settle all disputes. In this and tomorrow’s article I explore how reliably paintings meet that expectation, and who else wielded clubs and liked animal hide next to their skin.

One of the most unusual summaries of Hercules’ career is this mosaic from Llíria, Valencia, showing each of his twelve labours around its central panel. His club goes with him in every one except that in the centre, seen in the detail below.

There, in the midst of all his swashbuckling masculinity, Hercules is seen holding a distaff and spindle for spinning, and is dressed as a woman, while Queen Omphale sits on his Nemean lion-skin on her throne, clutching his club. This comes from a curious myth of role reversal and cross-dressing, in which Hercules served as a slave to the Queen of Lydia for a year as penalty for murdering Iphitus.

Bartholomeus Spranger’s Hercules and Omphale (c 1585) uses the same exchange of attributes, and plays openly with the eroticism of Omphale’s position. Note also the colour-coding of their skin.

Luigi Garzi’s Hercules and Omphale (c 1700-10) lets Hercules put his spinning gear behind him, as he entertains the court with a song and the tambourine. Omphale seems to be enjoying her new position on the lion-skin, while fondling his club in her left hand.

Byam Shaw ignores the figure of Hercules altogether, showing a triumphant and erotically-charged Omphale (1914) against a background of the twelve labours, in a remarkable reconfiguration of that ancient Roman mosaic.

Elsewhere, there are many depictions that identify the uncouth hero with his attributes.

In Hans Thoma’s Hercules Delivering Hesione (1890) Hercules stands on the beach in front of the early city of Troy, his trademark club in his right hand. A naked Telamon is busy keeping the sea monster at bay by throwing boulders at it, while Hercules is bargaining with the fair Hesione.

In about 1706, Sebastiano Ricci embroidered the story of Hercules Fighting with the Centaur Nessus showing the hero wearing his lion-skin, and his left hand grasping Nessus’ mouth, about to club the centaur to death, while a slightly bedraggled Deianeira watches in the background.

Noël Coypel, the father of the better-known history painter Antoine Coypel, painted Hercules Fighting Achelous in about 1667-69. This opts to show the pair during the first phase of their fight. In addition to wearing his lion-skin, Hercules wields his fearsome club.

Francisco de Zurbarán’s powerful Death of Hercules (1634) uses chiaroscuro as stark as any of Caravaggio’s to show a Christian martyrdom, with its victim staring up to heaven, commending his soul to God. He is wearing the poisoned shirt inadvertently given him by Deianeira, rather than his lion-skin, and his club rests at his feet.

A century ago today, on 17 July 1925, the great German artist Lovis Corinth died. To complete this series commemorating his career and art, I show a selection of the best of his narrative paintings. Some modern art historians claim that narrative painting died during the nineteenth century, but that certainly didn’t apply to Corinth.

Corinth’s first really successful narrative paintings were the two that he made in 1890, showing the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders, a subject he returned to as late as 1923. Identical in their composition, they have an unusual setting, as this scene of the two elders acting as voyeurs is more commonly shown in Susanna’s garden, or even woodland, as described in the original story.

Towards the end of his time in Munich, Corinth painted this first version of another famous story, this time the temptations that Saint Anthony was reported to have undergone. This is more typical of Corinth’s mature work, with many figures crammed into the composition in a raucous and highly expressive human circus. Although painterly in parts, he is careful to depict fine detail in the joint of meat being held by Saint Anthony, and the saint’s amazing face.

Corinth’s narrative paintings reached their peak at the time that he moved to Berlin, in this second version of Salome. Not only was it highly influential on a wide range of other artists and their arts, but its use of gaze is remarkably subtle and its success based on being implicit rather than explicit.

Corinth wasn’t as restrained when he tackled the story from Homer’s Odyssey of Ulysses Fighting the Beggar. He packs a crowd in, gives every one of them a unique and intriguing facial expression, then pits Ulysses against the beggar in almost comic combat. Note too how his figures are becoming looser.

If Corinth’s first Temptation of Saint Anthony showed a human circus, the rest of the animals and performers came for this his second. Those figures are also becoming significantly more painterly, and the Queen of Sheba has similarities with his earlier figure of Salome.

Of all his narrative paintings, his Homeric Laughter must be the most complex. It refers to a story within the story of Homer’s Odyssey, told by the bard Demodocus to cheer Odysseus up when he is being entertained by King Alcinous on the island of the Phaeacians. It’s another raucous spectacle, in which we join the other gods in seeing Mars and Venus caught red-faced making love.

Corinth returned to narrative after his stroke, painting The Blinded Samson with its obvious autobiographical references. Samson’s body is painted more roughly, although the artist has taken care to give form to the drops of blood running down Samson’s cheeks. This version of Samson contrasts with his others in showing the man alone.

Less than two years after his stroke, Corinth returned with another elaborate and wild painting, this time depicting the story of Ariadne on Naxos. This is another highlight of Corinth’s career, particularly as it condenses several different moments in time into its single image, using multiplex narrative; that might have been fairly commonplace during the Renaissance, but was exceptional for the early twentieth century. It works wonderfully.

Late during the First World War, Corinth moved on from crowded and vivacious narrative paintings, and became more autobiographical again. The huge and stark figure of Cain heaping rocks onto the body of his brother Abel fits with Corinth’s growing horror and despair as the war drew on.

Corinth’s last painting of Susanna and the Elders is a remarkable contrast with his first, from over thirty years earlier. He still avoids a pastoral or garden setting, and his figures are now fading forms in patches of colour and texture.

For what must have been his last great narrative painting, Corinth looked to the events leading up to the fall of Troy, in particular The Trojan Horse. The great walls and towers of the city appear as a mirage, their forms indistinct from the dawn sky. Although roughly painted using coarse marks, the soldiers and the horse itself are more distinct in the foreground.

Corinth’s style evolved through his career, but he also continued to paint stories right up to the last. Together, they form one of the most sustained and brilliant series of narrative paintings of any artist since Rembrandt.

References

Wikipedia.

Lemoine S et al. (2008) Lovis Corinth, Musée d’Orsay & RMN. ISBN 978 2 711 85400 4. (In French.)

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.