Spiderwoman

Book VI of the Metamorphoses opens with the story of Arachne. (picture from wikicommons by galak76, used by permission under creative commons licence)

Arachne appears in a fresco painted by Francesco del Cossa in the Palazzo Schifanoia in the late 1460s. Although the Palazzo doesn’t seem to have a website, you can see the fresco in situ in the following video, where it appears about 25 seconds in.

At some point between 1475 and 1485 Tintoretto painted the above painting of Athene and Arachne, which is now in Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi, but does not appear to be on their website.

The above fresco of Arachne by Veronese dates from 1520 and is in Venice’s Palazzo Ducale.
 

Another fresco of Arachne was painted by Herman Posthumus in 1542 and is from the Landshut Stadtresidentz, but does not appear to be on the Stadresidentz’s website.

Ruben’s version of the story of Arachne, painted 1636-7, is now in Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Perhaps the most famous representation of the story of Arachne and Minerva is this painting from 1657 by Velázquez, now in Madrid’s Prado.

The above picture from the Iconos site is a 1695 painting by Giordano and is now in El Escorial, but is not on its website, or indeed anywhere else that I can find. (unless stated otherwise all images in this post are from wikicommons and in the public domain)

The Lynx and the Magpies

The next story in the Metamorphoses is that of Lyncus’s treacherous attempt to murder his guest, Triptolemus, for which he was turned into a lynx. Jacques Dumont Le Romain painted a picture of this incident in 1732 which is now in the Louvre, but not on their website.

Book V now comes to a close. The daughters of Pierus, who had challenged the Muses to a singing contest but refused to accept the judges’ verdict against them, are changed into magpies. A painting from the 1520s by Rosso Fiorentino, which is now in the Louvre, shows the contest. This painting was probably the source for the design of a maiolica plate made 20 years later and now in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum. (Images of lynx (by ChickenFalls) and magpie (by Lamiot) are taken from wikicommons and used under a creative commons licence.)

Arethusa

The next story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is that of Arethusa, a nymph who was turned into a spring by the goddess Diana to protect her from the river Alphaeus who was chasing her.(photo of Arethusa's spring in Syracuse copyright Giovanni Dall'Orto, used by permission)


The Philadelphia Museum of Art has an Italian plate dated to 1531 showing Arethusa fleeing from Alphaeus.

The above statue group of Arethusa and Alphaeus was created by Battista di Domenico Lorenzi in the early 1570s and is now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (used by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)



Pace Audrey Hepburn in the film Roman Holiday, the 1820 poem about Arethusa was by Shelley, not Keats.

Legras painted the above picture of Arethusa in 1874, and it is now in Cherbourg’s Musée Thomas-Henry, but does not appear to be on their website. (public domain image from wikicommons)

Arthur Bowen Davies’s 1901 painting of Arethusa is now in Youngstown’s Butler Institute of American Art.


Arethusa’s story was one of those chosen by Benjamin Britten for his Oboe “Six Metamorphoses After Ovid”, composed in 1951, and played here by Nicholas Daniel.

Persephone: the 18th and 19th centuries

Having looked at Persephone in the 16th and 17th centuries, we now turn to 18th and 19th centuries.

Our first picture, Psyche Obtaining the Elixir of Beauty from Proserpine is by Charles Joseph Natoire and dates from around 1735. It is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.



In 1866 Swinburne wrote a poem called The Garden of Proserpine, an extract from which, accompanied by animations, appears in the above video.

In 1874 Dante Gabriel Rosetti painted the above picture of Persephone with a pomegranate, now in London's Tate Gallery.

Lord Frederic Leighton chose an unusual moment form the legend to paint in his 1891 "The Return of Persephone", now in Leeds Art Gallery. (all images in this post are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

Persephone: the 17th century

In my last post we looked at the story of Persephone in the 16th century, when the rape (i.e., kidnapping) of Persephone was a popular theme from the story. We now move on to the 17th century, looking first at pictures of the rape and then a few pictures of Persephone in the underworld.

In the first decade of the century, Hendrik van Balen painted Pluto and Persephone, which is now in the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.



Bernini's 1621-1622 statue of Pluto and Proserpina is now in Rome's Galleria Borghese. (public domain image from Museum Syndicate)



Rembrandt painted the above Rape of Persephone in 1631, which is Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, but does not appear to be on their website.



Pignoni's 1650 above L'Enlèvement de Proserpine is now in Nancy's Musée des Beaux-Arts.



In the early 1680s Giordano painted a series of oil studies or modelli which are now in London's National Gallery. These were preparation for a series of frescoes in Florence's Palazzo Medici Riccardi, one of which, showing the rape of Proserpina, is shown above.



Turning to the theme of Persephone in the underworld, the above detail from a 1622 picture of Hell by François de Nomé. The complete picture is now in Besançon's Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie.(image used under creative commons licence, courtesy of baroque-in-art.org) Paris's Louvre has a painting of Orpheus before Pluto and Persephone by Perrier and dating from 1647-1650. (unless otherwise ascribed, all images in this post are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

To finish this look at Persephone in the 17th century here is an extract from the overture to Lully's opera Proserpina. YouTube also has extracts from Act III amongst the related videos.

Persephone: The 16th century

Next in Ovid's Metamorphoses is the story of Proserpine, or as she is better known under her Greek name, Persephone. Paintings of Persephone in the 16th century concentrated on the Rape of Persephone ("rape" here meaning kidnapping). (picture of pomegranate from wikicommons used under creative commons licence. Other images are in the public domain and also come from wikicommons.)



Our first picture was painted by Niccolò dell'Abbate, probably shortly before his death in 1571. The painting is now in the Louvre. At about the same time Christoph Schwarz was producing a Rape of Proserpine, now in Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum.



Paris Bordone must have painted his Rape of Proserpine some time before this as he died in 1571. The painting is now in Milan's Galleria Salomon (scroll down).



In 1581 Hans von Aachen painted the above Rape of Persephone, which is now in Sibiu's Brukenthal Palace. In 1598 Joseph Heintz the Elder painted a Rape of Prosperine, which is now in Dresden's Gemaldegalerie. Unfortunately, their online presence is in Second Life and so inaccessible to me as I'm not a member.

Perseus and Phineus

Ovid starts Book V of the Metamorphoses by continuing the story of Perseus. Phineus, who had been betrothed to Andromeda, starts a fight at Perseus and Andromeda's wedding feast. In my post Perseus and Andromeda: the 17th Century I embedded part of a TV production of Lully's Persée. Here is Phineus' petrification scene from a sound recording of the same opera:



The picture shown to accompany the sound recording above is Luca Giordano's painting from the early 1680s Perseus Turning Phineus and His Followers to Stone, now in London's National Gallery.

Towards the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century, Sebastiano Ricci painted Perseus Confronting Phineus with the Head of Medusa, which is now in Los Angeles's Getty Center. Jean-Marc Nattier's 1718 Perseus, Aided by Minerva, Petrifies Phineus and His Companions by Showing Them Medusa's Head is now in Tours's Musée des Beaux Arts.

Perseus and Medusa: the 19th century and after

Last time we looked at Perseus and Medusa in the 16th and 17th centuries. I haven't found anything in the 18th century, so moving on to the 19th century, the 1806 statue on the left is by Canova and now in New York's Metropolitan Museum. An earlier version of this statue is in the Vatican Museum, but not on their website. (image used by permission of metmuseum.org)









George Watts sculpted a head of Medusa while visiting Florence in the 1840s. It is now in Compton's Watts Gallery (there doesn't seem to be any way of linking directly to the page, so you'll have to search for Medusa). (public domain image from museumsyndicate.com)



Arnold Bocklin painted this picture of Medusa in 1878 or thereabouts. It is now in a private collection.



Maximilian Pirner painted the top painting of Medusa in 1891, while Carlos Schwabe painted his Medusa in 1895 I have not been able to find either's present location, so I assume they are both in private collections.



Jacek Malczewski painted this Medusa in 1900. It is now in the Lviv Art Gallery, which does not seem to have a website.

Vincenzo Gemito produced a relief head of Medusa in 1911, which is now in Los Angeles's Getty Center.

To finish off with here is a rather nice cartoon version of the story of Perseus and Medusa produced by ABC and the University of Melbourne. (all images are in the public domain and come from wikicommons unless otherwise credited)

Perseus and Medusa: the 16th and 17th centuries

After Perseus defeats the sea monster and rescues Andromeda, the Ethiopians hold a feast in his honour and he tells the story of how he defeated Medusa.



Benvenuto Cellini's famous statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa is in Florence and dates from 1545-1554. John Singer Sargent produced a series of sketches and paintings of the statue, two of which are shown below, in the first decade of the 20th century. The upper picture is now in Washington's National Gallery of Art, and the lower picture is in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (but not on their website). For more on Sargent's pictures of the statue see this site.




Youtube has a short slideshow of photos of Cellini's work taken from various angles:





The above painting of the head of Medusa on a shield is by Caravaggio. Painted in 1596, it is now in Florence's Uffizi Gallery (scroll down). Caravaggio painted another version of the same picture a year or so later which is now in a private collection and not online that I can see. Caravaggio's painting is discussed in this Guardian article.



Painted about the same time, and also now in the Uffizi is this painting by an unknown Flemish artist. For a long time it was thought to be one of the paintings of Medusa Leonardo Da Vinci is known to have painted but which have been lost. It served as the inspiration a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (dialogic hypertext here).



The above picture of Medusa's head was painted in 1617-1618 by Rubens and is now in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. It is discussed in detail here.



Bernini produced a bust of Medusa in the 1640s, which is now in Rome's Musei Capitolini, where it is currently undergoing restoration.



Maffei's picture of Perseus Cutting off Medusa's Head (above) was painted in 1650 and is now in Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia, but is not on their website. (all images are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)

Perseus and Andromeda: The 20th century and After

We conclude our look at interpretations of the story of Perseus and Andromeda with a couple of examples from the 20th century.

Odilon Redon's 1912 picture of Andromeda is now in Little Rock's Arkansas Art Center.

In 1921 Jacques Ibert wrote an opera about Perseus and Andromeda.

The Ray Harryhausen 1981 stop-motion film about Perseus and Andromeda, Clash of the Titans, is being remade, with the new version due out in March 2010. The trailer for the original can be seen below, and of course there are various excerpts on YouTube.

Perseus and Andromeda: The 19th century

We turn now to the 19th century in our exploration of the story of Perseus and Andromeda.



Ingres's painting shown above was painted around about 1819. It is now in a private collection. (used under creative commons licence, courtesy of www.jeanaugustedominiqueingres.org)



In 1840 Theodore Chasseriau produced the painting above, which is now in Paris's Louvre. (public domain picture from commons.wikimedia.org)



Eugene Delacroix's Andromeda was painted in 1852. It is now in Houston's Museum of Fine Arts but does not appear to be on their website. (used under creative commons licence, courtesy of www.eugenedelacroix.org)





Two artists painted Andromeda in 1869. The upper picture is by Gustave Dore. I haven't been able to find out its present whereabouts, so I assume it's probably in a private collection somewhere. The lower picture is by Edward Poynter and is now in London's Tate Britain. (both pictures are in the public domain and come from commons.wikimedia.org)



Around the same time Gustave Moreau produced the above picture, which is now in the Bristol City Gallery, but not on their website. (public domain picture from www.the-athenaeum.org))



Lord Frederic Leighton's picture dates to 1891 and is now in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. (public domain picture from www.museumsyndicate.com)

Perseus and Andromeda: The 18th century

We continue our exploration of the theme of Perseus and Andromeda, moving into the 18th century with a picture painted in 1723 by François Lemoyne and now in London's The Wallace Collection. A few years later in 1727 Charles-Antoine Coypel also painted Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, which is now in Paris's Louvre. It is not on the Louvre's website, but can be seen in the Joconde database of artworks belonging to the French government. (wikicommons starmap by Roberto Mura used under creative commons licence)



In 1726, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni returned to Venice from political exile. In honour of the occasion a serenata called Andromeda Liberata was commissioned and performed only to languish thereafter till it was rediscovered in 2002. It is a matter of some musicological dispute whether the serenata was composed by one musician or several, but it is certain that one of the arias, Sovvente il sole, was written by Antonio Vivaldi. The above YouTube extract has the finale from a 2006 performance in Cremona. The New York Times has a background piece to the manuscript's discovery.

In 1730, Tiepolo painted a picture now in New York's Frick Collection, as a study for a ceiling fresco now lost due to WWII bombing.



Anton Raphael Mengs produced the above picture in 1774-1777. It is now in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage. (public domain picture from wikicommons)



Lastly, in 1787 Michael Haydn (brother of the more famous Joseph) wrote an opera, "Andromeda und Perseus", an aria from which can be heard in the YouTube video embedded above.

Perseus and Andromeda: The 17th century

In the early 1600s Carlo Saraceni, inspired by Giorgio Vasari's Perseus and Andromeda, which we looked at in my previous post, produced the picture below of Andromeda in Chains, which is now in Dijon's Musée des Beaux-Arts, but not on their website.(the picture of coral on the left was produced by the United States National Oceanic and Atmpospheric Administration and is thus in the public domain. From wikicommons)



In 1610 Mozzarone painted a picture of Andromeda which is now in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.



Another similar painting by Joachim Wtewael shown above, dates from 1611 and is now in Paris's Louvre.







Rubens painted three versions of Perseus and Andromeda. The top picture is in St. Petersburg's State Hermitage while the middle picture is in Berlin's Gemälde Galerie Kulturforum, but not on their website. They were both painted in 1620 or 1621, while the bottom picture was one he was working on when he died in 1640 and is now in Madrid's Prado (direct link to picture not possible).



At about the same time as Rubens was painting the first two of his pictures of Perseus, Lully was composing an opera about Perseus and Andromeda: Persée, the opening of a recent TV production of which can be seen in the above embedded YouTube video. Other parts of this production are also available on YouTube.



Around 1630 Rembrandt painted the above picture, which is now in the Hague's Mauritshuis (scroll down).




The tapestry shown above was designed by Francis Cleyn and made from 1635-1645. It is now in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, but is not on their website.



The above 1679 painting by Pierre Mignard is now in Paris's Louvre.



Also in the Louvre are the above 1678-1684 statue of Perseus and Andromeda by Pierre Puget and a 1671 drawing by Claude Lorrain, depicting not Perseus's rescue of Andromeda but the creation of coral from seaweed by Medusa's head while Perseus is washing his hands in the sea after killing the monster. The drawing was preparation for the painting below, now in a private collection. (Picture of statue in the public domain according to museumsyndicate.com, picture below used under creative commons licence)



We'll finish this look at the 17th century with a 17th century copy of Guido Reni's 1635 Perseus and Andromeda in London's National Gallery (the original is in the Pallavicini collection in Rome, but not on their website) and a 1638 picture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which may or may not be by Anthony van Dyck. It serves as the hook for this article from the Los Angeles Times on the re-attribution of works of art. (pictures not otherwise credited are in the public domain and come from wikicommons)