Pace C., ''The Golden Age... The First and Last Days of Mankind. Claude Lorrain and Classical Pastoral, With Special Emphasis On Themes From Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'''

"The Golden Age...
The First and Last Days of Mankind": Claude Lorrain and Classical Pastoral,
with Special Emphasis on Themes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses"
Author(s): Claire Pace
Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 23, No. 46 (2002), pp. 127-156
Published by: IRSA s.c.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483702 .
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CLAIRE PACE
"The Golden
Age...
The First and Last
Days
of Mankind":
Claude Lorrain and Classical
Pastoral,
with
Special Emphasis
on Themes from Ovid's
Metamorphoses*
Dostoievsky's
vision of Claude's Acis and Galatea
[Fig. 1],1
which he had seen in Dresden in
1867, represen-
ted a harmonious but
ultimately
unattainable Golden
Age,
which will
eventually
vanish. This
response captures part
of
the essential
spirit
of Claude's
rendering
of Ovidian
themes,
at least towards the end of his career. In the words of
Versilov,
in The Raw
Youth,
Claude's
painting depicts
"mankind's
paradise...
a wonderful dream..."2 The context
is that of the Golden
Age
in a more
specific sense,
as it was
described
by
classical writers and
by 17th-century mytho-
graphers,
and the
painting provides
a central focus for
any
discussion of Claude's
rendering
of Ovidian
themes,
as
I
hope
to show.
Marcel
Roethlisberger
has stated in a seminal article
that "the
subjects
of Claude's
paintings...
are of fundamen-
tal
importance, they
are in fact the chief
key
to the full under-
standing
of his
landscapes."3
This
assumption
has underlain
a number of recent studies.4 It is in this context that I
pro-
pose
to
explore
the
question
of Claude's
interpretation
of
subjects
from Ovid's
Metamorphoses,
in an
attempt
to
analyse
the distinctive
qualities
of this
interpretation,
as well
as to
suggest
some
possible
visual sources for Claude's
imagery.
I Claude and the Pastoral Tradition
This
paper
is divided into two interconnected sections:
I wish first to locate Claude's
approach
to Ovid in the
pastoral
and Arcadian
tradition,
and
especially
to note his
affinity
to
Sannazaro's Arcadia. The second section turns
specifically
to
a consideration of Claude's Ovidian
subjects, though
still
emphasizing
the
pastoral
connection.
Claude was
contributing
to an established tradition of
illustrations to
Ovid, notably by
Titian and Northern artists in
Rome,
but his
interpretation
differed in
many respects
from
that of other artists.5 I believe that his
approach
to Ovid is
most
profitably
considered in the context of his
pastoral
scenes,
which are rooted in the Arcadian
pastoral
tradition
going
back in literature to Theocritus and
Vergil's eclogues,
and
popularised
in the Renaissance
by
Sannazaro.6 In the
visual arts this tradition is
epitomised by
the
pastoral
scenes
of
Giorgione
and
Titian,
or the woodcuts of
Campagnola.7
It
may
therefore be worth
briefly summarizing
some of the
important
characteristics of this tradition.
Characteristically,
the
pastoral landscape
consists of
a
peaceful
rural
scene, envisaged
as a
place
or
refuge
and
solace, composed
of certain
key
motifs. In
particular,
a tree or
127
CLAIRE PACE
1)
Claude
Lorrain,
((Coast Scene with Acis and
Galatea?>,
1657
(LV 141),
100 x 135
cm, Dresden, Gemaldegalerie.
group
of trees
(a
sacred
grove),
to
provide
shade from the
midday sun; water, generally
a
pool
or
stream,
to offer refresh-
ment;
soft
green grass
on which a
shepherd
reclines and
flocks
graze.
For this is an
inhabited,
humanised
landscape-
though
the inhabitants should be herdsmen or
shepherds,
not
engaged
in
physical toil,
for
only
thus would
they
have the
leisure
(otium)
to
indulge
in
music-making (playing pipes
or
singing)
and in
contemplation-often
about fulfilled or
unhap-
py
love.8 Thus the sense of ease and freedom is an essential
attribute. Such an innocent and
simple
life led in this rural
locus amoenus
(delightful place)
is often
presented
in
explicit
or
implicit
contrast to the
supposedly
more stressful existence
of urban civilisation-whether as a
refuge,
or as a
morally
superior
alternative to urban existence. The harmonious
128
"THE GOLDEN AGE...": CLAUDE AND CLASSICAL PASTORAL
atmosphere may, however,
be disturbed
by
a reminder of the
transience of
happiness,
and of human
mortality (epitomised
by
the tomb of a
shepherd), introducing
an
elegiac,
as well as
an
idyllic
mood. In some
cases,
the inclusion of shrines or
architecture
provides
a reminder of the outside
world,
or of the
deity
to whom the sacred
spot
is devoted.
Such a
landscape
finds its earliest
literary expression
in
the Greek bucolic
poets,
and in the
Idylls
of the Hellenistic
writer
Theocritus, originally
from
Syracuse
in
Sicily,
described
as "the founder of
pastoral poetry"
and
writing
in Greek.9 In
particular, Idyll 1,
and
Idylls
3 to
7,
and 11 have been charac-
terised as
bucolic,
as concerned with the characteristic
themes of the
genre, notably
that of the lovesick
shepherd
or
herdsman, resting
and
playing
music
(sometimes
in a contest
with another
shepherd),
and
singing
of his love. Theocritus
also introduces the more
elegiac
theme of the
presence
of
death;
in his
Idylls
1 and
7,
a
group
of
shepherds
lament the
death of their
companion Daphnis,
and the natural world
shares their
grief-another
recurrent
topos
of
pastoral.10
Theocritus was in touch with
early
rituals
concerning
the death
of a
shepherd king,
and their close connections with the
theme of nature's death and renewal: the
very
essence of
metamorphosis.11 Segal
has
emphasized
the "tension
between realism and
artificiality..."
that is characteristic of
Theocritus'
poetry:
as well as the evocation of the traveller
reclining
"under a
shady
beech tree when the sun's heat
parches",
there
may
be also a "conventional and
generic"
treatment of elements of the
setting.
There are also reminis-
cences of the actual Sicilian
landscape,
with references to
pines,
wild olive
trees,
the sea and the mountains.12
In
Vergil's
more
complex
bucolic
poems,
the
Eclogues-
the
prime
source of the
pastoral literary
tradition in
Europe-
there is a more varied
landscape;
in
Eclogue 1,
a well-tended
farm,
seen
through
the
eyes
of an
exile;
in
Eclogue 2,
also
a
farm,
seen
by
a farm
slave; Eclogue
3
presents
a rural coun-
tryside,
with shrines and
vineyards;
the
enigmatic
evocation of
a new Golden
Age
in
Eclogue
4 has a context of forest-clad
wilderness-the Golden
Age,
it is
suggested,
will
bring
about
a transformation of Rome into a farm where the earth is
spon-
taneously productive.
Such a
variety
reflects a modification in
mood and treatment in the
sequence
of
poems,
concerned
with the
shifting relationship
between man and nature.13 In
Vergil's poems,
we are conscious of the
fragility
of the
tranquil
rural
idyll;
we are made aware of the existence of the distant
town,
and also of the
exigencies
both of
history
and of con-
temporary
existence. Death too is
present,
with the tomb of
Daphnis
in
Eclogue
5 and the
elegiac group
of mourners sur-
rounding
it.14 In
many instances,
a sense of the actual Italian
landscape
underlies the
presentation
of
general
motifs.
Vergil's poems
are not alone in
possessing
such
associations;
the
landscape vignettes
in Tibullus'
Elegies,
which are remi-
niscent of
contemporary sacral-idyllic painting,
are also reso-
nant with a sense of
history, evoking
the
pastoral origins
of
Rome.15
The
concept
of
Arcadia-representing
an
imaginary
realm, peopled by herdsmen-poets,
remote from
worldly
cares,
devoted to
song
and the
pursuit
of love-is
closely
linked to the
pastoral landscape,
and indeed is
indissolubly
associated with Claude's
paintings. However, despite
the later
associations of Arcadia with an
idyllic, gentle landscape,
a locus amoenus
providing
a timeless
refuge,
the
landscape
of
the actual Arcadia
(in the
Peloponnese),
as described
by
the
historian
Polybius,
is harsh and
rugged.
It is
notable, also,
that
Vergil
refers to
Arcadia,
or
Arcades,
in
only
four
passages
of
the
Eclogues,
and of these
only
two include
specific
land-
scape descriptions,
never
referring
to the whole
landscape
as
"Arcadian".16 The most
important
of such
passages
is the
Arcadian
description
of
Eclogue 10,
where the wild and moun-
tainous
landscape sympathetically
reflects a lover's sorrow-
for the
landscape
of Arcadia itself is
here, ironically,
harsh and
unwelcoming.
The
shepherd
Gallus is a victim of "crudelis
amor", who "will think of
wandering through
forests which
are...wilder and more
dangerous
than those of
pastoral,
but
bear a close resemblance to some of the erotic
landscapes
of
the
Metamorphoses."17
For
example, Eclogue 10,
line 52:
"...to suffer in the woods
among/
The wild beasts'
dens...";
or
line 58: "...the
sounding
rocks and
groves..."18 Vergil's
Arcadia
has, indeed,
been described as a "variation
upon
the
classical tradition that
pictured
Arcadia as
primitive
wilder-
ness..."19 It
may perhaps
be seen as
representing
a "hard" as
opposed
to a "soft"
primitivism,
to use
Lovejoy
and Boas' ter-
minology.20
Arcadia becomes associated with the
gentler,
more fertile locus amoenus
chiefly
in
post-classical develop-
ments, particularly
with Sannazaro's more
eclectic, pic-
turesque
and
enormously
influential
eponymous romance,
which
probably provided
the immediate source of
imagery
for
many
sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century
artists.21
However,
Sannazaro's use of
Vergil's Eclogues
is
highly selective, and
his
representation
of Arcadia as a vision of the
pastoral
world
is based almost
entirely
on an elaboration of the outlines
adumbrated in the tenth
Eclogue.
For
instance,
his romance
opens
thus:22
There lies on the summit of
Parthenius,
a not inconsider-
able mountain in
Arcadia,
a
pleasant plateau...
filled with
deep-green herbage...
There are about a dozen... trees of
such unusual and
exceeding beauty
that
any
who saw
129
CLAIRE PACE
2)
Claude
Lorrain, <<Landscape
with
Goatherd,,,
1637
(LV 15),
52 x 41
cm, London,
National
Gallery.
them would
judge
that Mistress Nature had taken a
spe-
cial
delight
in
shaping
them... in their
midst,
near a
limpid
fountain,
soars towards heaven a
straight cypress...
in
this so
lovely
a
place
the
shepherds
with their flocks will
often
gather together
from the
surrounding hills,
and exer-
cise themselves there... in
playing
the
shepherd's pipe...
(etc)
Sannazaro's
description develops
the
passage
in
Vergil's
tenth
Eclogue: "Here, Lycoris
are cool
fountains,
here soft
fields, / here
woodlands...",
but is more
expansive
and more
detailed.23
Sincero,
the hero of Sannazaro's
romance,
wan-
ders
through
the
idyllic pastoral landscape listening
to the
shepherds' songs; then,
in a transition from
idyllic
to
elegiac
pastoral,
the consciousness of
transience,
and the demands
of the real
world,
are felt in the
discovery
of a dead herds-
man's tomb.24
Sannazaro's
imaginary country incorporates
elements
from Theocritus as well as from
Vergil,
and
also-important
in
the
present
context-includes
episodes
from Ovidian
mytho-
logy,
with the Renaissance
poet's
sense of freedom and
power
to revise ancient
imagery, creating
"fantastic variations
upon
a
single Vergilian
theme."25 Yet it is also selective and
partial,
keeping history
at a
distance,
in
Naples.
There is no reference
to
contemporary
events and there is an avoidance of
"geor-
gic" elements,
such as
farms, harvests,
or
vineyards.
Certain
topoi
in Theocritus'
Idylls
and
Vergil's Eclogues,
taken
up
and
popularised by Sannazaro,
have had an enor-
mous resonance and
imaginative impact
on both artistic and
literary pastoral
traditions. The most celebrated is the
image
of
the
shepherd, playing
or
holding
a musical
instrument,
and
reclining
under a tree in the
shade; crystallised
in the
opening
of the first
Eclogue (with Tityrus reclining
beneath a beech
tree): "Tityrus lying
back beneath wide beechen cover,/ You
meditate the woodland muse on slender oat..."26 Sannazaro
echoes this
praise
of "l'ombroso
Faggio"
and
expands
such
an
image in,
for
example,
his
description
of
"Ergasto
solo" at
the foot of a tree
("a piedi
di un
albero"),
in lovesick
forgetful-
ness of his duties.27 The
image
of
refreshing shade, providing
shelter from the heat of the
sun,
recurs
frequently;
for instan-
ce,
at the
opening
of
Eclogue 2,
Montana and Urano retreat to
"...the shade / of the
pleasant beeches,
now that the sun / at
mid-day
darts his
burning rays..."28
Such
images-of shady groves, refreshing pools,
and
reclining
herdsmen-find a visual
equivalent
in some of
Claude's
pastorals,
in
particular,
Claude's
early Landscape
with Goatherd
(LV 15) [Fig. 2];
or the Pastoral
Landscape
of c.
1633-35, showing
a cowherd
reclining
under a tree on the
left,
and herds
grazing.29
Other
examples
are the Pastoral
Landscapes
of c.1639
(LV 39),
and 1661
(LV 155).30
As well as the
shade-giving tree,
or
grove
of
trees, images
of
water, usually
combined with
shade,
and
implying
refresh-
ment and
purity,
are also of central
importance:
these
usually
take the form of a still
pool,
surrounded
by trees,
or else a bub-
bling spring.
For
example,
in
Vergil's
first
Eclogue: "Lucky
old
man, among
familiar rivers
here,
And sacred
springs, you'll
angle
for the
cooling
shade..."31
(This
recalls Theocritus' refe-
rence to a
"lovely
stream" in the first
Idyll.32)
A characteristic
expansion
of the reference in Sannazaro's romance runs: "But
seeing
the sun mounted
high
and the heat
grown very intense,
they
turned their
steps
towards a cool
hollow...Being
arrived
130
there
shortly
and
finding living springs
so clear that
they
seemed of
purest crystal, they began
to refresh with the chill
water their beautiful faces..."33 In
particular, specific
rivers or
springs
are associated with beautiful and
peaceful places,
notably
the Vale of
Tempe,
in
Thessaly,
or the river Anio at
Tivoli,
which also had a celebrated cascade,
much
praised by
travellers to
Italy.
Reminiscences of such
springs
or cascades
occur in a number of Claude's
pastorals-sometimes
in the
context of a
recognisable,
if idealised view of
Tivoli;
for exam-
ple,
Pastoral
Landscape
with the
Temple
of the
Sibyl
at Tivoli
of
1639,
or Pastoral
Landscape
of 1641.34
In the
setting
of
groves
and
shady pools, recalling
classi-
cal
pastoral-with
the addition of
buildings,
both entire and
ruined
(the
latter an innovation of Sannazaro's Renaissance
pastoral)-certain underlying
themes recur
frequently, again
recalling
those of
Vergil
or Theocritus. In
particular,
the bucol-
ic
landscape
is
pervaded by
the twin themes of love and
music. The musical contest between rival
shepherds
or herds-
man forms a recurrent
"framing"
device in both Theocritus'
Idylls
and
Vergil's Eclogues,
and it
comprises
the virtual raison
d'etre of Sannazaro's Arcadia: for
instance,
the
contest,
remi-
niscent of
Vergil's
"arcades
ambos",
between
Logisto
and
Elpino, "shepherds
handsome of
person...both
of Arcadia and
equally ready
to
sing..."35 Shepherds
or herdsman
playing
an
instrument-either the
sampogna (bagpipes)
or the reed
pipe-are
familiar inhabitants of Claude's
pastorals
of the
1630s;
for
instance,
the Pastoral
Landscape
of 1636
(LV 11),
with
piping herdsman,
or the Pastoral
Landscape
of c. 1637
(LV 25),
with a
standing goatherd piping
and a seated
shep-
herdess
playing
a
pipe, accompanied by
a
shepherdess
strik-
ing
the tambourine.36 Other
examples
are LV
39,
of
1639,
with
a seated
figure playing
the
sampogna,
and LV
42,
with seated
shepherd playing
the flute to a
listening shepherdess.37
Music is also
present
as an
accompaniment
to the rural
dance,
one of the favourite motifs in Claude's
early pastorals;
as
many
as
eight
or nine
paintings
show the
subject
of the
dance, repeated
in three
etchings,
and several
drawings;
from
the
early Landscape
with Peasant Dance
(St Louis)
of c.1630
to the
Landscape
with
Country
Dance of
1637,
or LV 13
(1637),
made for
Pope
Urban
VIII,
a
lover,
and
author,
of bucolic
poet-
ry [Fig. 3].38
It was of this last work that Blunt wrote that it
"might
be an illustration to the end of
Georgic II",
while Kitson
comments that the
subject
of
pairs
of dancers
competing
for
a
trophy, might
have been
suggested by
a traditional rural fes-
tivity.39
This
might, indeed,
be a reflection of such festivities as
the "festivo de'
Pastori",
in honour of rural
deities,
described
in Sannazaro's romance.40
Another recurrent theme is that of the
journey,
often at
evening,
either of travellers
making
their
way through
a land-
scape,
of
shepherds journeying,
or of herdsmen
driving
cattle
along
a
path;
in the
Arcadia,
such
passages occur, for exam-
ple,
in Prosa
2, describing shepherds driving
their
flocks,
or in
Prosa
5,
with a
journey through
woods.41 Parallels
may
be
found in Claude's
work;
for
instance, Landscape
with
Shep-
herds of
1630-35,
with herdsman
driving
cattle
diagonally
into
the
picture
or Pastoral
Landscape (LV 18),
where there is
a similar sense of
movement,
of herdsman
ushering
herds
through
the
landscape.42
LV
67,
of
1642,
shows a horseman
crossing
a
bridge
as he
journeys
towards
Tivoli,
and herds-
man
driving
cattle to drink at the ford in the
foreground.43
While Theocritus
presents
an
unchanging scene,
with an
unending noontide, Vergil,
on the other
hand,
shows a con-
sciousness of the
powerful
associations of certain times of
day, especially
dawn and dusk-the most evocative and
poet-
ic moments.44 Three of the
Eclogues
close with the
coming
of
evening, prompting Panofsky's
evocative
term, "vespertinal"
as
expressing
the characteristic mood of the
genre.45
In the
first
Eclogue
the fall of
night interrupts
human
song (lines
82-
83); evening
is also evoked in
Eclogues 2,
6 and 9. Sannazaro
characteristically expands
such
evocations,
for
example
his
Prosa V: "At the
going
down of the sun now all the west was
scattered over with a thousand kinds of clouds..."46 The
effects of
moonlight
are
particularly
associated
by
Sannazaro
with a sacred
place,
with an aura of
divinity; e.g.:
"A
place truly
sacred and
worthy
of
being always
inhabited-thither when
the
shining
moon with full face shall
appear
to mortals over the
entire earth I shall lead
you..."47
The idea of
mutability
is also
implicitly conveyed by
the
changing
seasons evoked
by Vergil:
in the first
Eclogue,
that
of
autumn;
in the third and
seventh,
that of
spring;
while the
second recalls late
summer,
with scenes of
harvesting,
ploughing
and
pruning.48 Although
the world of the
Eclogues
is an ideal
world, then,
it is also imbued with a sense of the
passing
of
time,
a sense of
transience;
it
depicts
the
cycle
of
seasons, evoking particularly
the
promise
of
spring,
or the full-
ness of summer.
Thus,
in contrast to Theocritus' timeless
world, Vergil's
rural
poetry (especially Eclogue 4)
is charac-
terised
by
a sense of time and of
history.
Claude's
landscapes, also,
are
permeated by
a sense of
the
passing
of time.49
Although
the season of his
paintings
is
generally
that of
high summer,
with its heat and lush
vegeta-
tion,
nevertheless the choice of
morning
or
evening,
with their
associations of arrival or
departure, pinpoints particular
moments.
(Moonlight occasionally occurs,
with
melancholy
131
CLAIRE PACE
3)
Claude
with Rustic
Dance>>, 1637, drawing (LV 13),
194 x 259
mm, London,
British Museum.
associations,
as in the
drawing
of the Three Heliads
Mourning
at the Tomb of
Phaeton).50
The
frequently recurring
themes of
travellers or
figures journeying through
the
landscape, already
noted,
also
convey
this sense of the
passage
of time.
And,
as
we shall
suggest, many
of the
subjects
chosen
also,
in them-
selves
imply
transience and
mutability. Indeed,
it
might
be
suggested
that the
presence
of ruins-whether of real or of
imaginary buildings-in many
of his
paintings
itself
implies
a meditation on time's relentless
passage:
a constant theme
among
travellers to Rome.51
The ruins
depicted
in Claude's
paintings may
also be seen
as emblematic of Rome's former historical
greatness. Vergil,
too,
is
particularly preoccupied
with
Italian,
indeed
specifical-
ly
Roman
history.
The
prophetic
fourth
Eclogue
is the locus
classicus for the idea of a
golden age.52
Here the Roman and
Italian
connotations, symbolised
in the reference to the
132
4)
Claude
Lorrain,
((Pan and
Syrinx)),
c.
1656, drawing,
260 x 409
mm, Rotterdam,
Museum
Boymans-van Beuningen.
Cumaean
Sibyl, imply
a sense of
history
that is essential to
Vergil's
"Romanized
conception
of the
golden age".
The
Eclogues
are linked in this
respect
to a
passage
in the
eighth
book of the
Aeneid,
where the
poet celebrates,
in terms of
a
"golden age",
a
post-primitive society specifically
located in
Latium
(Italy).
The
poem
describes the
founding
of Rome on
the Palatine Hill
by
the
shepherd-king
Evander of Arcadia.53
Claude's later
paintings,
often made for noble Roman
patrons, convey
a
Vergilian
sense of the
early history
of
Rome,
and this
particular episode
is
given magnificent
embodiment
by
Claude in one of the "Altieri
Claudes",
the
Landing
of
Aeneas at Pallanteum; the
Trojan prince
meets with
King
Evander,
ruler of Arcadia (as recounted in Aeneid
viii).
Aeneas
accompanies
Evander to the
Palatine,
where he is shown the
shrine of
Lycaean Pan;
Pallanteum was venerated
by
Roman
antiquarians
as a
primitive shepherd community
and the site
of the
worship
of the
goddess Pales,
sacred to
shepherds
and
herdsmen. The theme of Roman rites is also treated
by
Tibullus,
who describes a sacrifice to
Pales, goddess
of
shep-
herds,
thus
again emphasizing
Rome's
pastoral origins.54
Propertius'
fourth book of
Elegies similarly
alludes to a "lost"
primitive
Rome.55 In Sannazaro's romance,
the
description
of
rites in honour of the
gods
has an
important place; as,
for
instance,
in the account of the festival of
Pales,
with its accom-
panying
festivities.56 The land
depicted
is thus "both
mythical
and
real",
in Fantazzi's words. In Claude's
painting,
the
figures
133
CLAIRE PACE
of the
shepherd
and his flock in the left
foreground
below the
hill, emphasize
the
pastoral origins
of the foundation of
Rome.57
Mortality, too,
is
present
in the
Eclogues;
in
Eclogue
5 the
shepherds
mourn the death of
Daphnis (recalling
Theocritus'
first
Idyll).
The sense of a
sympathetic nature,
with trees and
rocks
joining
in the
mourning,
is
powerful,
and
expanded by
Sannazaro,
for
example
his second
Egloga, or,
in
particular,
the
passage
in Prosa
X, describing
how "...the
pine
trees
round about made answer to him...and the
visiting oaks,
for-
getful
of their own wild
nature,
abandoned their native moun-
tains to hearken to him..."58 While Claude himself
relatively
rarely depicts
death
itself,
nevertheless
many
of his
paintings
carry
the
weight
of a sense of
foreboding,
of imminent
tragedy,
that
elegiac quality
which has been defined as an essential
element in Arcadia. Above
all,
the sense of a close
sympathy
between man and nature is
implicit
in Claude's work.
In classical
pastoral,
the rural scene is
peopled
not
only
by shepherds,
but also
by
rural deities or semi-deities-
nymphs, fauns, satyrs,
and
especially Pan, deity
of
Arcadia,
whose
pipes
became the traditional
symbol
of the music-mak-
ing
Arcadian
shepherd.
A
drawing by
Claude
[Fig. 4]
shows
Pan
pursuing
the
nymph Syrinx,
whose transformation to
reeds created pan-pipes.59 Pan
plays
an
important
role in the
Arcadia,
where Sannazaro refers to him as "the forest
deity"
("Iddio
del salvatico
paese");
in Prosa
X,
he describes the tem-
ple, statue,
and cave of Pan.60 The
cave, "very
ancient and
roomy",
is situated in a sacred
grove,
"beneath an
overhang-
ing
cliff
among
fallen
rock",
with an altar
"shaped by
the rustic
hands of
shepherds".61
Pan's characteristic
instrument,
the
sampogna,
recalls the bucolic verse of
Vergil;
in Sannazaro's
verses,
a
"large
and beautiful
sampogna" hangs
from the
branch of a
"lofty
and
spreading pine
tree" in front of the
cave.62
A dance of the
Satyrs
who form the
entourage
of Pan is
also described in Sannazaro: "Let fauns and
Sylvans leap.
Let
meadows and
running
waters
laugh...", recalling
a
passage
from the first book of the
Metamorphoses.63
Claude's
Landscape
with a
Dancing Satyr
of
1641,
while not
specifical-
ly Ovidian,
seems to
epitomise
this
passage [Fig. 5].
As Kitson
has
observed,
it translates his favourite theme of the rural
dance into Arcadian and Bacchic terms.64
The
depiction
of
nymphs,
fauns and
satyrs-part human,
part
divine
creatures-may
serve as a
point
of transition
between the
"pure" pastorals,
and the
"mythological pas-
torals"
(to
use Freedman's
term)
which
depict
scenes from the
Metamorphoses.65
The
underlying
theme of the
Metamorpho-
ses-that of transformation into
plants
or flowers
(most
usual-
5)
Claude
with
Dancing Satyr,,
c. 1641
(LV 55),
99.5 x 133
cm, Toledo, Ohio,
Museum of Art.
ly
treated
by Claude)-embodies
the idea of
integration
and
interdependence
with the natural
world,
an idea at the heart of
the
pastoral
dream
(however ironically presented
in Ovid's
poem). Images
of
figures
who have been thus transformed are
described
by
Sannazaro as inscribed on the tomb of Massilia:
"Finally
whatever children and
magnanimous kings
were
wept
by
the olden
shepherds
in that first
age,
all were seen flower-
ing
here in
metamorphosis,
still
keeping
the names
they
had...";
he cites
Adonis, Hyacinthus
and Narcissus.66
Sannazaro
provides
a
specific,
and
significant,
link
between the
Metamorphoses
and Arcadia,
in his
description
of
how his
shepherds
discover the
Temple
dedicated to Pales
(goddess
of
shepherds),
decorated with scenes
showing,
as
well as
shepherds, nymphs
and
satyrs, episodes
from the
Metamorphoses,
in a
landscape setting:67
...we saw
painted
above the entrance some woods and
hills, very
beautiful and rich in
leafy
trees and a thousand
kinds of flowers. A number of herds could be seen walk-
ing among them, cropping
the
grass
and
straying through
the
green
meadows... Some of the
shepherds
were milk-
ing,
some
shearing fleece,
some
playing
the
pipes...
and
some there were...
endeavouring
to match their
singing
with the
pipers' melody.
But what I was
pleased
to exam-
ine more
attentively
were certain naked
Nymphs...
134
Sannazaro then describes
Apollo
as a
shepherd guarding
the herds of
Admetus,
which are then stolen
by Mercury-one
of Claude's favourite
subjects:
"And on one of the sides was
fairest
Apollo, who, leaning
on a wild-olive
staff,
was
guarding
the herds of Admetus on the bank of a river... he was unaware
of clever
Mercury,
who in
pastoral
dress... was
stealing away
his cows..."68
1I Ovidian
Landscapes
in Relation
to the Pastoral Tradition
Landscape
in Ovid's
poem
Landscape
has an
important place
in Ovid's
poem:
his
settings
are
suggestive
and
impressionistic,
not concerned
with the realistic
depiction
of actual
scenery.
Imbued with reli-
gious
or
spiritual feeling,
and
aptly
described as a
"paysage
mystique",
the
landscape
of the
Metamorphoses
is
largely
symbolic,
with the
recurring landscape
motifs of the
pastoral
tradition: secluded
groves, quiet water, shade,
soft
grass,
and
sometimes rocks or a
cavern; Segal
refers to "an almost
stereotypical sylvan scenery..."69
Ovid
was, indeed,
in
many ways
indebted to Theocritus
and
Vergil
for his
settings; according
to
Segal,
"Ovid's
groves,
shaded
place,
clear
fountains,
cool
streams, grassy meadows,
flowers, caves,
have close affinities with Theocritus' set-
tings".70 Yet, although
the
landscape
of the
Metamorphoses
is
intimately
connected with the
pastoral tradition,
it subverts it.
The characteristic effect of Ovid's
landscape
arises from the
way
he uses
idyllic settings
for the erotic or violent actions he
describes,
thus
inverting
the usual connotations of
pastoral
landscape.
For
example,
whereas the elements of wood and
water in the
pastoral
tradition
imply refuge
and
solace,
in
Ovid's
poem they
often become a source of
danger,
as in the
story
of Narcissus. The
impact
of the
tragic
events narrated is
paradoxically
enhanced
by
contrast with the
apparently
serene
landscape settings.
Segal
has described how the traditional elements of
pas-
toral,
the locus amoenus of a
pool providing
refreshment and
a
shady grove offering
shelter from the
midday heat,
are in
Ovid's
poem
the
setting
for scenes of violence.71
According
to
Grimal,
Ovid's favourite
landscape
consists of rocks and
forests,
reminiscent of the "harsher" version of Arcadia in
Eclogue
X.72
However,
as Wilkinson and others have
noted,
many descriptions
focus on
water,
which is the central ele-
ment also in bucolic
poetry.73 Shade, umbra,
which in
Vergil
implies peace
and
leisure,
in Ovid's work often has sinister
qualities, providing
a
setting
for the deaths of
Narcissus,
or
Procris.74 Whereas
sympathy
between man and nature is an
essential strand in the
pastoral tradition, whereby
the sur-
rounding
woods and mountains
respond,
in a
Vergilian way,
to
the emotions of the
protagonists,
this is subverted
by
Ovid's
ironical stress on the threat to the
figures
at the
mercy
of lust
or
aggression.75
Some mention should be made of the
question
of analo-
gies
between the
landscape descriptions
in Ovid's
poem
and
the
painters
of
Augustan Rome,
when the
category
of land-
scape
mural
decoration,
and then
mythological landscape
painting
of the late second and third
styles,
was
developing.76
The
principal
motifs of the decorative
painters
of
Augustan
Rome-especially rocks, woods,
and water-are those which
also
figure
in Ovid's
poem,
which has some affinities with both
scenographic
and
"pure" landscape painting. (The
inclusion
of architectural elements in
"sacral-idyllic" painting
is
signifi-
cant for Claude's
approach,
if not
directly
relevant to the
Ovidian
subjects).
Both
poet
and
painters may
be said to have
emphasized
the
expressive qualities
of
landscape.
The con-
sensus is that Ovid
may
have been indebted
to,
or at least
aware
of, contemporary painters;
like their
work,
his
poem
presents
a
generalised concept
of
landscape,
rather than
a
depiction
of an actual scene. The motifs of
woods,
caves
and water are
presented
as conventional features united in
a
symbolic
whole.
Claude's
interpretation
of Ovid
As I have
suggested,
Claude too
adopts many
of the tra-
ditional motifs of
pastoral
in his
rendering
of Ovidian themes.
While a
general
debt to classical bucolic
poetry,
and to
Sannazaro,
is evident in the
early pastorals,
Ovid's
poem
formed his most
frequent specific literary
source (in both
paintings
and
drawings) throughout
his
long career;
it was
chiefly
in his final
years
that he focussed on
subjects
from
Vergil's
Aeneid
(notably
with the
paintings
for
Altieri).77
Claude's interest in Ovid is not in itself
remarkable,
since
subjects
from the
Metamorphoses
were
highly popular
in the
16th and 17th
centuries, especially
with Venetian artists and
with Northern artists
working
in
Italy.78 By
Claude's
day,
indeed,
the
painter
would
probably
often
rely
as much on
established artistic tradition as
upon
textual
minutiae,
and
a
knowledge
of the
myth
would
generally
have been assumed
in the viewer.
However,
we know that Claude
(if
not
always
faithful to Ovid's own
text)
did consult the translation of Ovid's
text
by
Giovanni
Anguarilla,
and that he considered it suffi-
ciently important
to be noted in an
inscription
to one of his
Liber Veritatis
drawings,
that to LV 70.79
Indeed,
Claude went
135
CLAIRE PACE
so far as to illustrate an
episode
found in
Anguarilla's
transla-
tion, though
not in the
original
Ovidian
text,
in his
depiction
of
Mercury presenting Apollo
with a
lyre,
in LV 192.80
There was a
long
tradition of "Ovides
moralises",
with
a
specifically
Christian
interpretation
of the Ovidian fables. As
late as the seventeenth
century,
when the earlier
allegorical
or
topological interpretations
of the moralized Ovids had lost
their
force, something
of this tradition
persisted
in a
general
sense. As a scholar of Ovid has
written,
"To
regard
a classical
fable as a valid
truth, necessarily open
to
interpretation
on dif-
ferent levels... is an attitude of mind which remained with six-
teenth-century
writers and their
public long
after the moralized
Ovids themselves were
forgotten..."81
Illustrated editions of Ovid's
text, also,
or series of
prints
based on the
Metamorphoses,
were well known and circulat-
ed
widely during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.82
To cite Moss
again,
"The illustrated editions of Ovid show
a
variety
of
ways
of
reading mythological
narrative... literal...
as visual
picture,
or a set of
general
intellectual truths in
coded
form;
as a moral
exemplum,
or... as material for alle-
gorical interpretation by similitudes,
or as a
repertory
of liter-
ary
reminiscences of associations."83
Among
the most influ-
ential
illustrations, setting
a new artistic
standard,
were those
by
Bernard Salomon for the
Metamorphose figuree
of
1557,
with
images
on each
page
above Italian verses. These served
as models for a number of later
illustrations, notably
the bold
and
striking engravings by Tempesta (1606), Crispijn
de
Passe's
elegant
illustrations of
1602,
and also the
splendid
French edition with translation
by
Nicolas Renouard of
1619.84
However,
the extent to which
painters
were indebted
to the illustrations is
debatable;
Svetlana
Alpers
has written
that "the
pictorial
tradition of monumental
painting
was often
completely separate
from the illustrated Ovids... illustrations
in the
printed
Ovids were narrative not
allegorical
in
intent... 85
Claude was
surely
aware of the tradition of the illustrated
Ovids. For
example,
he draws on its conventions in certain
motifs or
poses
of
figures, particularly
for more intimate
scenes: a notable
example
is the
compositional arrangement
in his Coast Scene with Acis and Galatea.86 In
particular,
the
series of
etchings, published
in
1641, by
the Alsatian artist
J.W.
Baur,
in which
landscape plays
a dominant
role,
often
seem to have an
affinity
with Claude's
compositions.87
With
the illustrations of
Salomon, Tempesta,
and to some extent
Crispijn
de
Passe, however,
the chief
emphasis
is on the
fig-
ures,
while with Claude it is the combination of
figures
and
landscape
that
conveys
the
meaning
of the
compositions.
In
general, then,
it seems more
likely
that Claude drew
chiefly
on the
pictorial
tradition of Domenichino or of Northern
artists in
Rome,
and in
particular,
on his own
pastoral
com-
positions reflecting
the
poetry
of Sannazaro (as discussed
above).
Selection of
subjects
Ovidian
subjects
are most common in Claude's oeuvre in
the 1640s and
1650s,
but
may
be found
throughout
his
career,
from the
Judgement
of Paris of 1633 (in fact from Ovid's
Heroides,
rather than the
Metamorphoses,
but often included
in editions of the
latter)
to his Parnassus with Minerva
Visiting
the Muses of 1680.88 In
general
one
may
trace a
gradual
development
in his
approach
from an "allusive and evocative"
(in Kitson's
phrase)
to a more careful and
specific
treatment of
the
myth:
Kitson's allusion is to Claude's treatement of the
subject
of
Mercury
and
Aglauros,
where the artist has set the
scene
showing Mercury
with Herse and
Aglauros
in an
open
landscape,
rather than as an interior scene.
(However,
it is
worth
noting
that both Ovid and
Anguarilla
state that
Mercury
descended to earth when he
caught sight
of Herse as he flew
above Minerva's
temple,
while some of the illustrated Ovids
show
Mercury flying
above the
figures
outside Minerva's tem-
ple,
and Claude
may
have drawn on such
images.89)
The sub-
jects
tend to be more unusual later in his
career,
and the artist
is also more concerned to establish a closer consonance
between
subject
and
setting (following
the
pattern
of his work
in
general).
When an unfamiliar
subject
occurs
early
in the
artist's
career,
one
may suspect
the intervention of the
patron
(or
at least that the artist was aware of the
patron's particular
interests).90
Some Ovidian
subjects
recur
frequently,
at different
stages
in Claude's
oeuvre,
as for instance with the favourite
subject
of
Mercury
and
Apollo;
others
rarely
or
only
once
(the
Apulian Shepherd).
There is a
consistency
in the kind of sub-
ject
that Claude selects from the
Metamorphoses,
at
any
rate
from the 1640s
onwards,
and I
hope
that an
analysis
of this
choice-and
equally
of the
subjects
which the artist avoids-
may
be
illuminating.
I have
suggested that, although
Claude
was
contributing
to an established tradition of illustrations of
themes from Ovid
by
other
artists,
his interest lies in a differ-
ent facet of the
Metamorphoses
from that of
many
other
painters,
who often tended to dwell on the more erotic or dra-
matic,
even
sensational, aspects
of the narrative.
Claude,
in
contrast,
is not
generally
concerned with violent or
overtly
erotic treatment
(such
as forms a
large part
of the
appeal
of
Titian's versions
of,
for
example, Danae),
and he also avoids
more
grandiose
or
epic scenes,
for instance the Fall of
Phaeton or the Creation.91 In accordance with the mood of
pastoral
in
general,
his aim
appears
rather to be to
capture
136
6)
Claude
Lorrain, (<Landscape
with the
Flaying
of
Marsyas>>,
1645-1647
(LV 95),
120.5 x 158 cm.
By
kind
permission
of
the Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the Holkham Estate
(Photo: Photographic Survey,
Courtauld Institute of
Art).
a moment of transient
serenity,
which
may shortly
be dis-
turbed,
and to
prompt
meditation on the
event,
of which the
fatal
consequences
are
yet
to be revealed
(though
a knowl-
edge
of them
may
be assumed in the
spectator).
This mood is
one inherent in
"elegiac" pastoral. Following Panofsky,
we
may suggest
that the
poignant discrepancy
between the
bucolic
setting
and the
tragic
event
may
be seen as one
aspect
of the Arcadian ethos.
Significantly, then,
Claude refrains from
depicting
the
actual moment of
transformation,
and-with one or two
notable
exceptions-tends
also to avoid the more brutal
transformations,
to beasts or to stones. In
general,
Claude
favours what has been termed a
"principle
of
exclusion",
turning
to more
intimate, pastoral episodes.92
One of the rare
exceptions
to this rule is the
Flaying
of
Marsyas,
of which
there are two
versions,
LV 45 and LV 95
[Fig. 6].
In
these,
it is
the
pastoral
context which dominates: the
satyr Marsyas
has
dared to
challenge Apollo
to a musical
contest,
in the tradi-
tion of bucolic
verse, recalling
the contest of Menalcas and
Damoetas in
Vergil's Eclogue
3.93
(We
have seen that the
theme of music in an
idyllic setting
forms
part
of the
pastoral
ideal.)
This is a scene
rarely depicted
in a
landscape setting;
it is
likely
that Domenichino's version of c.
1616-18,
made for
7) Crispijn
de
Passe, <(Landscape
with the
Flaying
of
Marsyas,, engraving
from
Metamorphoseon
Ovidianarum...
(Cologne, 1602),
fol.
52,
83 x 133 mm.
(Photo: Glasgow University Library).
Frascati,
was a
pictorial source,
while the
grouping
of the
fig-
ures in De Passe's
engraving
also recalls Claude's
rendering
[Fig. 7].94
Since Claude's
predominant
interest was in
landscape,
this
may
at first have
dictated,
or at least influenced both his
choice of
subject
and the
precise relationship
of the
figures
(generally
small in
scale)
to the
setting-though
there is evi-
dence, particularly
in the case of his
drawings,
of the care
which the artist took with
figures.95
In Claude's earlier Ovidian
scenes,
it is
chiefly
the mood
engendered by
the elements of
the
landscape
that concerns him-and this mood is
closely
related to the associations of the
pastoral
tradition.
The constant elements of Ovid's
symbolic landscape
are
to be found in Claude's
paintings: groves, woods, rocks,
clear
water. But
Claude,
it seems to
me,
is not concerned with
Ovid's
peculiarly sophisticated
introversion of the
customary
significance
of these elements. Thus
Claude,
even when
depicting
tales of violent
rape
or death recounted
by Ovid,
restores the
serenity
of
pastoral, thereby challenging
Ovid's
subversion,
and in a sense
may
be said to have
reintegrated
Ovid's
landscape
into the
pastoral tradition,
subverted
by
Ovid
himself.
137
CLAIRE PACE
8)
Claude
Lorrain, <<Ceres and
Arethusa,>, 1635-1640,
drawing,
182 x 252
mm, London,
British Museum.
Specific examples
The
archetypal pastoral
elements of
landscape,
the
grove
and the
pool,
are
present
in one of Claude's earliest
depictions
of an Ovidian
subject:
his
drawing
of Ceres and Arethusa of c.
1635
[Fig. 8].96
Here Claude
depicts
a still
pool
surrounded
by
trees
(a
characteristic Ovidian
setting,
as well as the locus
amoenus of
pastoral tradition),
with the
goddess Arethusa,
her-
self
shortly
to be transformed into a
spring
when
pursued by
the river
god Alpheus-an example
of
how,
in Ovid's
text,
the
sacred
grove
becomes a source of
danger,
while water
(tradi-
tionally
associated with
chastity) acquires quite
different con-
notations.
(The precise
Italian location
may
be
significant
here:
Arethusa was
traditionally
held to be a
spring
in
Sicily,
and
mentioned as such in
Vergil's
tenth
Eclogue).97
Claude
appears
to have turned to translations rather than the
original
Latin;
as
already noted,
we know that he made use of the trans-
lation
by Anguarilla,
with annotations
by Horologgi.98 Although
Ovid does not describe the
setting
in
detail,
the translation
evokes it
vividly: "Returning
one
day
from the
chase, weary
and
alone,
abandoned
by
her
companions,
I saw a stream
whose banks were adorned with
poppies
and
willows,
and with
pleasant
and welcome shade. The
place
was isolated..."9
While it is debatable to what extent Claude would have
been influenced
by
the
commentaries,
the evidence of such
9)
J. W.
Baur, <Narcissus,,, 1639-1640, etching,
135 x 210 mm.
(Photo: Warburg Institute, University
of
London).
inscriptions proves
that he did on occasion follow the text
carefully.
In this
particular case,
the artist's
interpretation may
have been coloured
by Horologgi's comments,
which assert
that
"chastity, fleeing lust,
is known to be clear and
pure,
like
the clear water of a
spring..." (This
recalls the familiar
setting
of
pool
and
grove
in both the
Eclogues
and in the
Arcadia).100
Horologgi's
definition of the
significance
of water
may
be
relevant also to Claude's
only
known
painting
of the
subject
of
Narcissus,
the beautiful
youth
who fell in love with his own
reflection in a
pool,
and was transformed into the Narcissus
flower,
while the
nymph Echo,
in love with
Narcissus,
faded
away
and
eventually
was
metamorphosed
to a rock.101 The
fable of Narcissus was a favourite
subject
for Renaissance
artists,
and was
interpreted by
emblem writers and
mythogra-
phers
as
symbolising
destructive
self-love, frequently
with the
connotation of
sterility,
in contrast with the
fertility
associated
with the
myth
of Bacchus.102
However,
it is not the minutiae of
such
interpretations
that
chiefly signify here,
but rather the
evocation of the
spirit
of the
myth concerned,
as embodied in
the
integration
of
figures
and
landscape.
Likely
visual
precedents
for Claude's
painting
include the
image
of Narcissus
by Domenichino,
in his contribution to
the decoration of the Galleria
Farnese,
in turn based on
emblem books and illustrated editions of the
Metamorpho-
ses-Baur's
etching
has some
affinity
with Claude's
compo-
sition
[Fig. 9].103
The
setting
of Claude's
painting
of Narcis-
138
10)
Claude
with
Narcissus)>,
1644
(LV 77),
94.5 x 118
cm, London,
National
Gallery.
sus
[Fig. 10]
offers a contrast between the
enclosing grove
on the
left,
in which Echo and another
nymph
hide
away,
and
the luminous
expanse
of land
stretching
to the horizon on the
right.
The mood is
languorous,
with the sense of heat and
lassitude that Ovid evokes.
Anguarilla's
version of Ovid's text
describes the
"shady
wood" and the "clear and
crystalline
pool", offering
refreshment at
midday,
"when the Sun has
risen to a
point
on the horizon
equidistant
from Dawn and
Sunset".104 Claude has modified the
light
to that of
morning.
Here,
the
kneeling figure
of Narcissus is oblivious to the
magnificent expanse
of nature around him-he is
literally
blinded
by
self-love to the
splendours
of the natural
world,
on
which he turns his back.
In Ovid's
poem,
water has a characteristic
ambiguity,
as
both
life-giving
and
destructive,
a
symbol
of both
chastity
and
sexuality.
This ambivalence is
especially conspicuous
in the
narration of the
myth
of
Narcissus,
where a lucid
pool
is at
first the
symbolic equivalent
of the
youth's virginity (Book III,
407-12),
but later becomes the instrument of his destruction;
thus the locus amoenus
provides
no safe-haven from the heat
of
passion.
Water and woods are in
pastoral grouped togeth-
er as
providing
solace and
refuge; they
are often
closely
linked in
Ovid,
also. Thus the
nymph Echo,
in love with
Narcissus,
hides in the
surrounding woods,
near the
pool
in
11)
Claude
Lorrain, <<Cephalus
and Procris Reunited>,
1645
(LV 91),
102 x 132
cm, London,
National
Gallery.
which Narcissus will drown
("spreta
latet
silvis", III, 393).
Such an evocation both of the heat of the
sun,
and of the
shady grove
and clear
pool offering respite
from the
heat,
is
a familiar
topos
in the
pastoral tradition,
and Claude
clearly
locates the narrative in an arcadian
landscape deriving
from
that tradition.
Horologgi's
annotations to the Narcissus
story, following
earlier
interpretations,
refer to the
nymph Echo, pining
for
Narcissus,
as the
"immortality
of
names",
little
regarded by
"i
Narcisi";
the
latter,
consumed with
self-love,
are
spoiled by
the
evening-thus
their "names" are buried with them.105 This
emphasis
on the
fragility
and evanescence of the Narcissus
flower seems to me
appropriate
to Claude's
interpetation,
evoking again
the mood of
"elegiac pastoral"
where the locus
amoenus
provides
a
temporary respite
from the cares and
dangers
of the actual world.
Narcissus as a huntsman also has
parallels
in the
pastoral
tradition,
where the huntsman rests
briefly
from his
exertions;
another
example
from the
Metamorphoses
is that of
Cephalus,
whose
hunting expedition
had such fatal
consequences
for his
beloved Procris.106 Claude
depicted
the
story
of the
reuniting
of
Cephalus
and Procris
by
Diana
(a
rare
subject-that
of the
death of Procris was more
common,
several times
[Fig.
11]).107 Cephalus
tests the
fidelity
of his wife Procris, disguis-
139
CLAIRE PACE
, 4rframw -o lur dL de rar Lrocrir auo
t
;erar
/
r
rL
jarff
zrzm,
f (=o~d?ud Weaerjri7i
rir
.ffaLlpo_TejiyP
13) Crispijn
de
Passe, <<Death of
Procris,, engraving
from
Metamorphoseon
Ovidianarum...
(Cologne, 1602),
fol.
66,
12)
Claude
Lorrain,
<<Death of
Procris,, 1646, drawing
83 x 133 mm.
(LV 100),
197 x 258
mm, London,
British Museum.
ing
himself as
stranger;
she flees and roams the
countryside
as one of Diana's train of huntresses.
Eventually
she
yields
to
Cephalus' pleas
for
forgiveness,
and
brings
him the
presents
that Diana had
given
her-a hound and a
spear.
The
spear,
ironically,
becomes the means of her
death,
since she in turn
suspects
the
fidelity
of
Cephalus
and hides in bushes to watch
him;
he hears
rustling
and attacks her. Claude
departs
from
Ovid's text in
showing
the
goddess
Diana
(or possibly
one of
her
nymphs) present
at the
meeting
of the
lovers, presenting
Cephalus
with the fateful
spear.108
In one
version,
of the
1630s,
the motif of crossed dead tree-trunks in the
foreground
may
refer to the
tragic
outcome.109
In his
rendering
of the Death of
Procris,
known
only
from
the Liber Veritatis
drawing [Fig. 12],
Claude
exceptionally
shows the dramatic moment of
discovery (though
not the
actual moment of
death).110
Here a
jagged branch,
as well as
circling birds,
and dramatic
lighting effects, may
allude to the
tragedy. Anguarilla's
translation also
conjures up
a sense of
foreboding, suggesting
somnolent heat and
enclosing
woods:
Ne
I'hora,
che
piu
caldo il Sol
percote
E che
quasi
suoi
raggi
a
piombo atterra,
E fa I'ombre drizzar verso
Boote,
E del
piu grande
incendio arde la terra...
(etc.)
The "rest" and
"peace"
invoked
by
the text
are, however,
ironically bestowed, finally,
on Procris.111 The basic
composi-
tion
may
be indebted to C. de Passe's
engraving [Fig. 13].
The
subject
of
Apollo
as
herdsman, guarding
the herds of
Admetus,
which are stolen
by Mercury, presents
an
obviously
appropriate subject
for
pastoral scenes;
as
noted,
it
figured
among
the scenes in the
Temple
of Pales described
by
Sannazaro,
and the Ovidian narrative is thus located
securely
within the
pastoral
tradition.112 It was also a favourite with
Claude,
with versions of this theme
ranging
from the 1640s to
the noble and
expansive compositions
of the 1660s.113 In LV
92,
Claude's first version
[Fig. 14], Apollo plays
the violin
(as
in
Raphael's Parnassus),
in contrast to the
representation
of the
myth by
Domenichino's studio at
Frascati,
or to his own
depic-
tion in LV
128,
where the
god
is shown
playing
a
pipe,
in accor-
dance with Ovid's text.114
Music-making,
as we have
observed,
plays
an essential
part
in the
pastoral tradition, (with
the lovelorn
shepherd singing
or
playing
a musical
instrument),
and this fact
too is
appropriate
once more for
Apollo
both as
shepherd
and
as
god
of music. As Kitson has written Claude "was to make this
theme his own in the middle and later
part
of his
career, [and
was
to] identify [it]
with the idea of
pastoral... [my italics]"115
In
LV 135 and LV
152,
the
figure
of
Mercury-seen driving
the cat-
tle
away,
like a herdsman in a
pastoral-is considerably
smaller
than that of
Apollo,
in contrast to the
equal prominence given
to
both in LV 92.116 LV
170,
of
1666,
in Kitson's
words,
shows the
140
fr".
'.--
11
r
I
>K. .. K
I- -
,. - . , 4
14)
Claude
Lorrain, (<Landscape
with
Apollo
and
Mercury>>,
1645, drawing (LV 92),
261 x 191
mm, London,
British
Museum.
two
figures
"as almost a
pure pastoral,
with both the
gods
bare-
ly distinguishable
from classical herdsmen."117 In his late
paint-
ing (c. 1678)
of a
rarely depicted episode
from this
myth,
LV 192
[Fig. 15],
Claude shows
Apollo receiving
the
gift
of a
lyre
from
Mercury,
in
compensation
for stolen
herds;
here the artist
appears
to have relied on
Anguarilla's account,
since the
episode
does not occur in Ovid's text-another instance of his
close adherence to the translation
(if
not to the classical
text).118
Claude's
painting
of
Mercury
and Battus
(LV 159,
Chats-
worth, 1663),
is
possibly pendant
to LV
152,
and
depicts
a relat-
15)
Claude
Lorrain, <Landscape
with
Apollo
and
Mercury,,,
1678, drawing (LV 192),
192 x 250
mm, London,
British
Museum.
ed
episode
from the second book of the
Metamorphoses [Fig.
16].119 (Battus
was an old man who witnessed the theft
by
Mercury
of the herds of
Admetus,
tended
by Apollo,
and who
was
eventually
transformed to stone in order that he should
never reveal the
theft).
This
episode
also had been described
by
Sannazaro as
among
the scenes
depicted
in the
temple:
"And in that same section was the one who revealed the
theft,
Battus,
transformed to
stone, holding
his
finger
outstretched in
the act of
pointing..."120 Although
the transformation to stone is
an
exceptionally
brutal
one,
Claude
characteristically
avoids the
moment of
metamorphosis
and shows a
gentle pastoral
scene.
De Passe's
engraving
has a
similarly pastoral setting [Fig. 17].
Another
episode
of the same
myth
which Claude treated
twice is also
depicted
in Sannazaro's
temple:
that of
Argus
guarding
lo (in the form of a white
heifer), again
tricked
by
Mercury.
The
story,
from the first book of the
Metamorphoses,
relates how
Jupiter changed lo, daughter
of the
river-god
Inachus,
into a white
heifer,
to hide her from the
jealousy
of
Juno.
Juno, suspecting Jupiter's infidelity,
insists that lo is
placed
in the care of the
100-eyed Argus (usually,
as
here, rep-
resented as a
giant). Eventually Mercury
succeeds in
lulling
Argus
to
sleep by playing
to him on a reed
pipe,
and then cuts
off his head. Sannazaro's version runs: "And a little lower
141
.- .- 0
11 . ;
CLAIRE PACE
v,.
. o . ,
. . . .
.......
. .
,
......
X .
.
-
*
IJnL?
fy?t
CWZg, >Aatm
ca
A.c 2s:34-r,M,at mo. r..y7/Z
r.u'
- cFt' '13aItf wi life fPe a
16)
Claude
with Battus and
Mercury,,,
1663
(LV 159), Chatsworth,
Devonshire
Collection,
75 x 112 cm.
Reproduced by permission
of the Duke
of Devonshire and the Chatsworth Settlement.
Courtauld Institute of
Art).
18) Crispijn
de
Passe, ((Mercury
and
Argus,,, ,, engraving
from
Metamorphoseon
Ovidianarum...
(Cologne, 1602),
fol.
16,
83 x 133 mm.
17) Crispijn
de
Passe, <<Mercury
and Battus,,
,>, engraving
from
Metamorphoseon
Ovidianarum...
(Cologne, 1602),
fol.
27,
83 x 133 mm.
19)
Claude
Lorrain, (<The
Heliades
Searching
for their
Brother
Phaeton,,,
c.
1657-1658, drawing (LV 143),
195 x 257
mm, London,
British Museum.
142
20)
Claude
Lorrain, ((The Heliades at the ate Tomb of
Phaeton,
c.
1645, drawing,
247 x 354
mm, Rome, Pallavicini-Rospigliosi
Collection.
(Photo:
Istituto Centrale
per
il
catalogo
e la
documentazione).
Mercury
was to be seen
again, who, being
seated on a
large
rock,
was
sounding
a
shepherd's pipe
with
swelling cheeks,
...watching
a white heifer that stood
nearby,
and with
every
wile
he was
exerting
himself to deceive the
many-eyed Argus..."121
Claude
depicts Argus watching
over lo
twice,
first in
a
painting
for Camillo
Massimi,
of about
1645,
and
again
in LV
98 of about the same date.122 In the version for
Massimi,
the
painter
shows lo's two
sisters,
mentioned in Ovid's
text,
who
add to her
pain by failing
to
recognize
her.123 Two later works
depict
different moments in the
story:
LV 149 shows Juno
Confiding
lo to the Care of
Argus,
while its
pendant
shows
Mercury piping
to the
giant Argus-the latter,
in
particular,
recalling
the
piping shepherds
of
pastoral.
De Passe's
engrav-
ing [Fig. 18]
has a
similarly pastoral quality.124
143
CLAIRE PACE
21) Anonymous,
(<The Heliades at the Tomb of Phaeton,,
22)
Claude
Lorrain,
(Coast Scene with Acis and Galateao,
engraving
from Les
M6tamorphoses d'Ovide, Paris, 1619),
c.
1657, drawing (LV 141),
353 x 465
mm,
Windsor Castle.
112 x 135 mm.
(Photo: Edinburgh University Library).
(The
Royal
Collection
2000,
Her
Majesty
Queen Elizabeth
II).
The
original pendant
to LV
86,
made for
Massimi,
was LV
99, Apollo
and the Cumaean
Sibyl,
from the fourteenth book of
the
Metamorphoses.125
Here
Claude,
almost
certainly guided
by Massimi,
has
depicted
a
relatively
unusual
episode,
where
Apollo grants
the
Sibyl
her wish to live for as
many years
as
there are
grains
of sand in her hand. She
forgets, however,
to
ask for eternal
youth,
and
therefore,
since she refuses to
yield
to
Apollo's advances,
is condemned to an extreme old
age.
The intimation of this
outcome,
the
passing
of the
Sibyl's
youthful beauty,
is reinforced
by
the ruins in the
background;
this seems to me the dominant
meaning,
but it
may
also be the
case that Massimi chose the
topics
of these
pendant
works as
examples
of heroic
suffering.126
In another
relatively
unfamiliar Ovidian
subject,
Claude
depicted
the three Heliades
searching
for their dead brother
Phaeton,
after he has been struck down
by Jupiter
for his
temerity
in
driving
the chariot of the sun across the
sky [Fig.
19].127
The Heliades are also
shown,
in a
highly
finished
compositional drawing
of c.
1645, mourning
at the tomb of
Phaeton
[Fig. 20].128
It was more
usual,
for instance in the
illustrated editions of the
Metamorphoses,
to
represent
their
transformation into
poplars [Fig. 21].
In the
drawing,
the
atmosphere
of
gentle melancholy
is enhanced
by
the fact
that it is a
moonlight
scene (as is
implied
in Ovid's
text).129
The artist
thereby prompts
our
elegiac
meditation on the
event,
rather than involvement in the dramatic action itself
(though
there is an indication of the Heliades' eventual fate
in the
figure
in the
background).
This invitation to contem-
plation
and
meditation, again, provides
a link with the
pas-
toral tradition. As we have
noted,
the theme of the
shepherd
mourners
gathered
round a tomb is also one central to clas-
sical
pastoral;
for
instance,
the tomb of
Daphnis
in
Vergil's
fifth
Eclogue;
in the
Arcadia, shepherds gather
round the
tomb of
Androgeo,
and
mourning
and
elegy comprise
the
theme of his
Egloga
5.130
Claude's
rendering
of Acis and Galatea in
Dresden,
dated
1657, provides
a
particularly telling example (as
we have
sug-
gested above)
of the sense of
idyllic peace
and
harmony
shot
through by
a
premonition
of imminent
tragedy.131
Kitson has
written of "a
significant correspondence
between
picture
and
text", referring
to "the
contrasting
moods of terror and
bliss".132 Ovid's text is followed
closely
in the
rendering
of the
setting,
with a
high "wedge-shaped"
mountain
jutting
out into
the sea
(according
to both the
Odyssey
and the Aeneid as well
144
23)
J. W.
Baur, <Polyphemus,
Acis and
Galatea,, 1640-1641,
etching,
135 x 210 mm.
(Photo: London,
British
Museum).
as Ovid and
Theocritus,
the location for the
Cyclops
was
Mount
Etna,
in
Sicily). Anguarilla's
translation describes how
"a mountain extends far into the
sea,
so that it is
virtually
embraced
by
water."133
Water here too has an
ambiguous quality,
for the sea
assumes an ominous
character,
and Acis is
eventually
trans-
formed into a river. The
painting
reminds us that in Ovid an ele-
ment of
mystery may
be contributed
by
the
description
of
caves;
for the lovers Acis and Galatea hear from their "cave-
like" shelter the sound of the
Cyclops,
as a
premonition
of the
violent act that will shatter their
idyllic
love. The
conjunction
of
caves and water in
mysterious settings
has a
particularly
potent effect; recalling
the elemental forces
underlying
an
apparently
untroubled scene.134 The
prominent
rock
forms,
especially
in the elaborate
preparatory drawing
at Windsor
[Fig. 22],
while
possibly
reminiscent of
landscapes by
Polidoro da
Caravaggio,
are also close to those which Claude
had transcribed in some of his nature
drawings
and his
early
pastorals,
and
may
also
(as
will be discussed below in relation
to the
Perseus)
be modelled on forms found in
antique paint-
ings.135
The main
emphasis
in Claude's
painting
is on the
idyll
of
the lovers Acis and
Galatea;
their
tragic
fate
is, however,
hint-
ed
at,
for instance
by
the clouds
gathering
on the horizon-
and it is
significant
that
according
to sixteenth- and seven-
teenth-century mythographers Polyphemus
was
allegorized
as
representing
the
origin
of storms.136
Here, however,
the
threat is a remote
one,
and the
giant Cyclops
is
relegated
to
the
distance,
in his role as a
shepherd playing
his
pipes
and
singing
of his love for Galatea. There is a marked contrast
between the
flowering
bushes
sheltering
the lovers and the
barren rock where the
Cyclops
waits. It is the moment of
hap-
piness
before the
tragedy
that is
emphasized.
In this context it
should be noted that for
many
commentators the
age
of the
Cyclops
was located in the Golden
Age,
before the
reign
of
Saturn: a
point
which lends an extra
edge
to
Dostoievesky's
response
to Claude's
painting
as
epitomising
the
qualities
of
the Golden
Age.137
The
general
tenor of Claude's
interpretation
of the
story
may
be contrasted with that of Nicolas
Poussin,
for
instance,
in an
early drawing
made for Marino.138 Here the
giant
Polyphemus dominates, caught
at the moment of
greatest
dra-
matic
tension,
about to hurl down a rock on Acis. Poussin's
drawing
is
probably
based on an illustration to the 1619 edi-
tion of the
Metamorphoses (in turn derived from an
engraving
by Tempesta).139
In his
painting
of c. 1630 in
Dublin,
Poussin
approaches
Claude's
interpretation
more
closely
in the
dispo-
sition of the
figures
and in
general
mood:
Rosenberg
describes the
painting
as
having
a "romantic
quality"
which
gives
it a
"nostalgic poetry".140 However,
it also has an exu-
berant
energy,
with
figures, including sea-nymphs
and
tritons,
on a
larger
scale in relation to the
landscape;
that of
Polyphemus,
in
particular,
dominates the work rather than
being relegated
to the far distance. Poussin's later
mythologi-
cal
painting, Landscape
with
Polyphemus (1649), presents
a far more
complex image;
as has been
observed,
it is
unique
among depictions
of
Polyphemus
in
showing
the
giant alone,
not
juxtaposed
with the
figures
of Acis and Galatea.141 It
shares with Claude's
interpretation
its
rendering
of the
giant
in
a moment of
pastoral calm,
rather than violent
action,
shown
reclining
on the distant hill.
However,
Claude's chief focus in
his
painting
is not so much on
Polyphemus
as on the
figures
of Acis and Galatea in their
landscape setting-formally quite
similar to some of the illustrated
Ovids, particularly
that of
Baur
[Fig. 23].
To
reiterate,
Claude's concern is with the tran-
sitory
moment of
idyllic happiness ("sommo diletto")
of the
lovers, although
his
painting
is suffused with a
premonition
of
the
tragedy
that will
disrupt
that
happiness.
The
pendant
to the
painting
of Acis and Galatea was that
of the
Metamorphosis
of the
Apulian Shepherd,
one of the
more unusual
subjects
chosen
by
Claude in the 1650s:
prob-
ably
at least in
part
the artist's own
choice,
and not
solely
that
of the
patron [Fig. 24].142 (It
is
possible
that Poussin
may
have
exerted some influence on Claude's choice of
increasingly
145
CLAIRE PACE
24)
Claude
Lorrain, ((Landscape
with
Apulian Shepherd,,,
c. 1657
(LV 142), drawing,
197 x 260
mm, London,
British
Museum.
esoteric
subjects
at this
stage.)
Here Ovid's text is illustrated
with "considerable
precision".143
The artist
reinterprets
his
favourite motif of the rural
dance,
found in the
early pastorals,
but now with a more
precise significance.
The
dancing figures
occur in illustrated editions of
Ovid,
for instance in
Crispijn
de
Passe's
engravings
for the 1602 edition
[Fig. 25],
and those in
Renouard's translation of 1619. A choral dance occurs too in
Ovid's
text,
where the
shepherd frightens
a
group
of
nymphs
and as a
punishment
is turned into an olive tree.144
This is one of the rare
examples
where Claude shows the
actual moment of
metamorphosis, perhaps
because he is
focussing
on the
dance,
with all its
connotations,
rather than
the fate of the
shepherd.
This is the
impression given by
one of
the
preparatory drawings,
where the
shepherd
is still
chiefly
a
spectator
to the
dancing figures [Fig. 26].145
In the sixteenth
and seventeenth
centuries,
the dance was considered as
emblematic of cosmic
harmony;
it is therefore of some
signifi-
cance that the rural dance was one of Claude's favourite
motifs,
as it is his constant concern to illustrate the harmonious
relationship
between man and his natural
surroundings.146
A marine
subject
from the
Metamorphoses
which
preoc-
cupied
Claude
throughout
his career was that of the
Rape
of
25) Crispijn
de
Passe, <Apulian Shepherd,, engraving
from
Metamorphoseon
Ovidianarum...
(Cologne, 1602),
83 x 133 mm.
Europa [Fig. 27]-a
favourite
subject
with other
artists, notably
Titian. As has been
demonstrated,
Titian
exploits
the erotic
potential
of the
subject,
and in
general,
the decorative and the-
atrical
aspects
of the
story
have been those
chiefly
stressed.147 The
myth,
from the second book of the Meta-
morphoses,
describes how
Jove, disguised
as a
bull,
carries
the maiden
Europa
off to sea. Of Claude's several
versions,
all
are variations on the same basic
composition, though differing
to some extent in
complexity,
and in the balance between the
various elements.148 The
subject
is in a sense consonant with
Claude's
depictions
of coast
scenes;
the idea of
embarkation,
of arrival or
departure by sea,
is a familiar one in his
work;
such scenes have associations of imminent drama.
(In
Ovid's
text,
the
sea-coast,
which
figures prominently, generally
bears
ominous
associations).149 However,
in contrast with the
volup-
tuous
energy
of such a version as
Titian's,
Claude
presents
us
with an
innocent, apparently
festive
scene; Europa
is on the
shore,
surrounded
by
her maidens-not
yet
carried out to
sea,
though already
mounted on the bull's back.150 In one version
at
least,
she clutches the bull's
horns,
as described in Ovid's
text,
and her
fluttering garments
are also mentioned in the
text-though
of course the artist
may
be indebted to visual
rather than
literary precedents
here. For
instance,
an
early fig-
ure
drawing [Fig. 28] may
derive from
engravings
in the illus-
trated editions of the
Metamorphoses [Fig. 29],
and
perhaps
146
26)
Claude
Lorrain, <(Apulian Shepherd>,,
c.
1657, drawing,
170 x 240
mm, Haarlem, Teyler
Museum.
27)
Claude
Lorrain, <cCoast Scene with
Rape
of
Europa>>,
c. 1655
(LV 136),
193 x 253
mm, London,
British Museum.
28)
Claude
Lorrain, <cEuropa,, 1640-1645, figure study,
125 x 185
mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
29)
Antonio
Tempesta, (<The Rape
of
Europa,>, 1606,
engraving,
97 x 115 mm.
(Photo: Warburg Institute,
University
of
London).
147
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CLAIRE PACE
31)
Claude
Lorrain, <Drawing
after
Antique Fresco,,, 1661,
214 x 309
mm, London,
British Museum.
30)
Claude
Lorrain,
<Coast Scene with Perseus and
the
Origin
of
Coral,,,
1677
(LV 184),
100 x 127 cm.
By
kind
permission
of the Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the
Holkham Estate
Courtauld
Institute of
Art).
also from the celebrated mosaic in the Barberini collection
(drawn
and later
engraved by Bartoli, among
other
contempo-
rary copies).151
Kitson's view is that "the scene is
innocent,
carefree,
and frozen in time".152
However, despite
the
appar-
ently
insouciant
depiction,
I would
suggest
that even here
there are
implications
of the
tragedy
to
come,
in the
very
asso-
ciations of the
sea,
which in Ovid's text was often seen as
a
threatening element,
and
which,
in other
paintings by
Claude
himself, emphasized
the loneliness of the individual. We
may
recall the
pensive pose
of
Psyche by
the seashore
(whether
abandoned or
sleeping)
in Claude's
painting
of
1664,
as well
as his
similarly poignant rendering
of Ariadne alone
by
the
shore,
forsaken
by Bacchus,
in LV 139.153
The
sea,
with its sense of movement and more
precisely
its
implications
of
leave-taking
and
departure,
is
again
the
dominant element in the
subject
of Perseus and the
Origin
of
Coral,
of
1674,
which is
my
final
example [Fig. 30].154
The sub-
ject
of Perseus
rescuing Andromeda,
chained to a
rock,
from
the
Gorgon
Medusa was
relatively common,
but the later
episode
was
rarely depicted.155
Claude treated the
subject
only once,
late in his
career;
it was
painted
for the learned anti-
quarian
Cardinal Camillo Massimi. It is
exceptional
in
depict-
ing the actual moment of
transformation-indeed,
the
very
process
of
metamorphosis
is the
subject
of the
painting.156
According
to Ovid's
account, Perseus,
after
killing
the monster
that threatened Andromeda chained to a
rock,
washed his
hands in the sea. He laid the head and the air of Medusa on
a bed of
seaweed;
the blood from the head stiffened the sea-
weed and turned it
pink,
to the wonder of the
sea-nymphs
who
scattered
sprigs
on the waves.157
(Claude characteristically
omits the
figure
of Andromeda,
which other artists had dwelt
on for its erotic and
voluptuous qualities).
The
subject
was almost
certainly suggested
(as indicated
by
an
inscription
on a
drawing
in New
York)
to Claude
by
the
patron,
Cardinal Massimi,
in whose collection was a
drawing
by
Poussin of the same
subject ("The Origin
of
Coral")
which
Claude almost
certainly
knew.158
Although
there
appears
to be
little formal
relationship
to Poussin's
drawing,
there are certain
common
motifs, notably
that of
Pegasus
tied to a tree. This
episode
occurs in
Anguarilla's translation, though
not in
Ovid's
text;
it is
likely, therefore,
that Poussin's
composition
was based on that
translation,
which Claude also used (in this
instance,
Claude
may
have derived such motifs
directly
from
Poussin's
work).159 Apart
from
possible exegetical references,
the
palm
tree
may
have
special significance,
since Philostra-
148
32)
Claude
Lorrain,
<<Coastal Scene with Perseus and the
Origin
of
Coral,, 1674, drawing,
253 x 321
mm, Paris,
Mus6e du
Louvre, Departement
des Arts
Graphiques.
tus used the
palm
tree as a
symbol
of natural
fertility, while,
according
to
mythographers, "nothing
in the
vegetable king-
dom is so close to human nature as the
palm
tree."160 The
prominence
of the
winged
horse
Pegasus,
with hoof
raised,
may
reflect the fact that
Pegasus
was associated with
Apollo
and the
Muses;
it was said that he struck the
ground
at the foot
of Mount Helicon with his
hoof, causing
the fountain
Hippocrene
to burst forth.
(It
is notable that the
pendant
of this
painting
was the View of
Delphi
with a
Procession,
LV
180,
of
1673-representing
a sacred site associated with
Apollo
and
poetic inspiration.)161
Although
Claude made
only
one
painting
of this
subject,
it
evidently
had a hold on his
imagination,
for he
produced
three
drawings
and three
figure
studies related to the theme.162 The
basic
composition
remains
unaltered;
the difference between
the three
drawings
consists
largely
of a variation in balance
and distribution of
light
and
shade;
the
pale shape
of
Pegasus,
the
crouching figures by
the
shore,
the
framing
tree on the
right,
and
especially
the
great
rock arch which fills the
right
half of the
composition.
This arch form
may
have been
inspired by
the Arco di
Misena,
on the coast of
Fusero,
near
Naples,
but
surely
also had its source in Claude's own work.
Similar rock arches
occur,
for
example,
in some of the
early
pastorals (here perhaps
indebted to
paintings by Breenbergh
and
Tassi).163
The arch form
appears
also in his
drawings,
both those from nature
and-notably-a drawing
made in
1661,
after an
antique
fresco
[Fig. 31],
which in
my
view is the
most
important
source.164 This
drawing
is a
copy
of a fresco
found in c. 1627 in the
grounds
of the Barberini
Palace;
the
fresco was identified in the seventeenth
century
as a
"Nym-
phaeum",
or
sacral-idyllic landscape
sacred to the
nymphs.165
The
antique
fresco was much celebrated
(although
criticized
by Rubens,
who identified it as a
"nymphaeum",
as
merely
"an
artist's
caprice,
without
representing any plate
in rerum natu-
rae").166
It was also
frequently copied,
for
instance,
for
Cassiano dal Pozzo's "Museo Cartaceo" and
also, significant-
ly, by
Pietro Santi Bartoli in a volume made for Cardinal
Massimi,
the
patron
for whom Claude
painted
the
Perseus167).
The rock arch was
interpreted by
the Barberini librarian Lucas
Holste
(Holstenius)
as
representing Porphyry's Neoplatonic
reading
of the Homeric Cave of the
Nymphs,
seen as the
source of
generation (since
the
nymphs
were associated with
moisture).
Such an
interpretation
would
surely
have been
known to
Massimi,
and is
highly significant
in relation to the
underlying
theme of the
painting-that
of
metamorphosis.168
This
interpretation may partly,
at
least,
account for the
potent
force which the
rugged
rock arch has in Claude's com-
position.
In a
preparatory drawing
of
1671-74,
there is a sec-
ond
arch,
behind the
first;
both are
lightly
touched
in, giving
an
ethereal effect.169 In the
pictorial drawing
in the Louvre
[Fig.
32],
the arch is more
emphatic, looming up mysteriously
against
the
light,
a
shape
both
impressive
and
forbidding.170
This
drawing,
and also the Liber Veritatis
drawing [Fig. 33],
which are on blue
paper-rare
with
Claude-may
indicate
a
moonlight
scene
(though
the Massimi
inventory
describes
the
painting
as a
sunrise).171 Certainly
the subtle touches of
light
on the
wings
of
Pegasus
in the
Metropolitan drawing,
or
skimming
the
figures by
the
shore,
have a nocturnal
sugges-
tiveness. At
any
rate the
very ambiguity
enhances the effect of
mystery
and
magic
evoked
by
the
subject depicted.
The mas-
sive rock arch itself is also
strangely ambiguous:
so fantastic
a form of
nature, yet
so
closely resembling
art
(suggesting
perhaps
an arch of
triumph), bridging-both formally
and
fig-
uratively-nature
and
art,
and with numinous
suggestions
deriving
from the
antique Nymphaeum. (This interplay
between art and nature is one of the traditional themes of the
pastoral tradition, also).
Whereas in
general
Claude is
faithful,
if not to Ovid's
text,
at
least to
Anguarilla's
version of
it,
this is not his first considera-
tion;
he
may depart
from the text in certain
cases,
in order to cre-
ate a
particular
mood or emotional effect. In the
haunting paint-
ing
of Perseus and the
Origin
of
Coral,
he is more than faithful to
149
CLAIRE PACE
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-r-.??. ...- .- ?--?;":*L'?i--???. ??.1 ..I-CJ-y_rl;i???*? ;i- ??'??e
u?: -r..;? . t?
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;?'.;" '' ? '
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.i'-? .:..?(? :?-??
.-? I,.
?? ';' ?'
*-?
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i??
-YiT: CiBFiSry -?-r41!
?,. ''cr:SB
--CA
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iet
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33)
Claude
Lorrain, (<Coastal
Scene with Perseus and the
Origin
of
Coralm,
1674
(LV 184), drawing,
195 x 254
mm,
London,
British Museum.
the
text, using
it as
kindling
to his
imagination. Touching on,
del-
icately suggesting,
so
many mysteries-of night
and
day,
earth
and
water,
birth and death-it
may
be taken as a
fitting
culmina-
tion of Claude's
interpretation (rather
than mere
illustration)
of
the
Metamorphoses-"magical
transformations."
Thus we
may
conclude that in his earlier
renderings
of
Ovidian
subjects,
Claude
presents
versions of the
pastoral
tra-
dition; indeed,
it
might
be said that he succeeds in
reintegrat-
ing
Ovid's fables into that tradition. In later
interpretations
of
themes from the
Metamorphoses,
Claude shows a
greater
concern both to select more unusual
subjects,
and to follow
the Ovidian narrative more
closely
and
convey
its
meaning
precisely, by
means of the
conjunction
of
figure
and land-
scape.
He is
likely
to have shared at least the
general assump-
150
tions and moral tone of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century
allegorisations
of those fables
(if
not Poussin's subtle
explo-
ration of the
complex
connotations of such
allegorisations).
But the
pastoral
and
elegiac
mood dominate over
any
moral
interpretation:
it is in
part
the note of muted
regret
at the tran-
*
Part of this
paper originated
in a lecture
given
at the National
Gallery, London,
on the occasion of the exhibition,
Claude: the Poetic
Landscape, London, 1994;
the
catalogue by Humphrey
Wine has
been a stimulus, as have the lectures and
writings
of Helen
Langdon
on Claude. I am
grateful
to Eleanor Winsor Leach for her
helpful
com-
ments.
Any
discussion of this
subject
must also be indebted to the
writings
of Marcel
Roethlisberger
and Michael Kitson. Thanks to the
Department
of
History
of Art, Glasgow University,
for financial assis-
tance towards
photographic
costs.
The excellent
catalogue by
J.-C.
Boyer
to the exhibition, Claude
Lorrain et le monde des dieux
(Epinal, 2001),
which
appeared
after
this article was written,
discussed
many
of Claude's
mythological
sujects.
The Liber Veritatis
(LV)
was a book of
drawings
made
by
Claude after
his own
compositions,
from c. 1635, originally
as a record
against
forgery.
1 Coast View with Acis and Galatea,
LV
141, Dresden,
Gemalde-
galerie.
2 Cf. D.
Magarshak, Dostoievsky, London, 1962, pp.
358 ff.: "It
was Lorrain's
picture
that left its
greatest
mark on
Dostoievsky's
writ-
ings...
the
unsuspecting happiness
of the lovers... before
Poly-
phemus
descends
upon
them and kills Acis became associated in his
mind with the Golden
Age
of 'the first and last
days
of mankind'...
[He]
used
[the passage] originally
in The Devils,
then transferred it to The
Raw Youth and
finally
came back to it
again
in his
philosophical tale,
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man..."
3
M.
Roethlisberger,
"The
Subjects
of Claude's
Paintings",
Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
LVII
(1960), pp. 209-24;
cf. also idem, "Les
Dessins de Claude Lorrain a
sujets rares", ibid.,
LIX
(1962), pp.
153-
64.
4
Cf. Diane Russell, Claude Gellee
(exh. cat., Washington
and
Paris, 1982-83)
and
esp. Humphrey Wine, Claude: the Poetic
Landscape (see above).
5
See pp.
7-8. For a
thoughtful
outline of the tradition of
depic-
tions of Ovidian
subjects,
cf.
Nigel Llewellyn, "Illustrating Ovid",
in C.
Martindale, ed.,
Ovid Renewed, Cambridge, 1988, pp. 151-276,
with
bibliography.
sience of
happiness,
or the
apprehension
of imminent
tragedy,
pervading
Claude's
apparently
harmonious
landscapes
that
gives many
of his later
renderings
of Ovidian
subjects
a
pecu-
liar
poignancy,
and which also links them with the
pastoral
tradition.
6
Cf.
Roethlisberger (with
D.
Cecchi), L'Opera completa
di
Claude Lorrain, Milan, 1975; hereafter MR-C, p.
5: "Si deve
volgere
I'attenzione alla letteratura,
in
particolare
alla
poesia bucolica, che sin
dai
tempi
di Teocriti ci avera data una variata fioritura di
opere, per
comprendere
la fonte
d'ispirazione
del
paesaggio...
solo Claude
seppe
rendere chiaro dal
punto
di vista
figurativo quanto
era stato
pre-
cedemente cantato nell'ambito della
poesia...
la sua inclinazione
por-
tandolo a ricreare il mondo delle
Egloghe
e
Georgiche virgiliane
come
quello
della
poesia
di Ovidio..."
7
For the
pastoral tradition, especially
in Venetian
painting
and
graphic art,
cf. David Rosand, "Giorgione,
Venice and the Pastoral
Ideal",
in R.
Cafritz,
L.
Gowing
and D. Rosand,
Places of
Delight,
Washington
and London, 1988, pp. 20-81.
8
There is an extensive
body
of criticism on the
pastoral
tradition
in
literature;
cf. inter alia, Renato
Poggioli,
The Oaten Flute:
Essays
on
Pastoral
Poetry
and the Pastoral Idea, Cambridge, Mass., 1975;
T. G.
Rosenmayer,
The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the
European
Pastoral
Lyric, Berkeley,
1969.
9
Cf. Charles
Segal, "Landscape
into
Myth:
Theocritus' Bucolic
Poetry",
in
Poetry
and
Myth
in Ancient Pastoral, Princeton, NJ, 1981,
pp. 210-34.
10
Cf.
Idyll I, 132-36; Idyll 7, 72-77; Segal, ibid., p.
127.
11
Cf.
Idylls 1, 13-36; 7, 74-76; Segal, ibid., p.
222.
12
Cf.
Segal, ibid., p.
213 and n.11.
13
Cf. Eleanor Winsor Leach, Virgil's Eclogues:
the
Landscape
of
Experience,
Ithaca and London, 1974, passim; eadem, "Parthenian
Caverns:
Remapping
of an
Imaginative Topography",
Journal of the
History
of
Ideas,
XXXIX
(1978), pp. 539-60.
14
Eclogue
V,
esp.
lines 40-44.
15
Cf. Leach, "Sacral-ldyllic Landscape
and the Poems of
Tibullus' first Book", Latomus,
XXXIX
(1980), pp.
47-69.
16
Cf. Leach, "Parthenian Caverns", p.
55.
17
Cf.
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
74.
18
"... in silvis inter
speleae ferarum..."; "per rupes... lucosque
sonantis..." The translation of the
Eclogues quoted
here is that of
Guy
Lee,
for
Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, 1984, p. 105,
line 57.
19
Cf. Leach,
"Parthenian Caverns", p.
53.
151
CLAIRE PACE
20
Cf. A.
O. Lovejoy
and G. S.
Boas, Primitivism and Related
Ideas in
Antiquity, being
Vol. I of A
Documentary History
of Primitivism
and Related Ideas, Baltimore, 1935; reprinted
1965.
21
Jacopo Sannazaro, Arcadia, Venice, 1504;
references here are
to the 1586 edition in
Cambridge University Library.
Translations are
from R.
Nash, Jacopo Sannazaro,
Arcadian and Piscatorial
Eclogues,
Detroit, 1966. Helen
Langdon gave
an
illuminating
lecture on Claude's
interest in Sannazaro at the National
Gallery, London,
in 1994.
22
Sannazaro, Arcadia, ed. cit., p. 11-11v; Nash, ibid., p.
30-31.
23
Vergil, Eclogue X,
line 42: "hic
gelidi fontes,
hic mollia
prata,
Lycori...";
tr.
Lee, ibid., pp.
104-5.
24
Cf. Nash, ibid., p.13; Leach, ibid., p.
546.
25
Cf. Leach, ibid., p.
550.
26
Eclogue I, line 1:
"Tityre,
tu
patulae
recubans sub
tegmine
fagi..."(tr. Lee, ibid., p. 31)
27
Sannazaro, Arcadia, Prosa I; ed.
cit., p. 12.; Nash, ibid., p.
31.
28
Sannazaro, Arcadia, Egloga 2;
ed.
cit., p. 20; Nash, ibid., p.
36:
"... I'ombra de
gli
ameni
Faggi/
Pasciute
pecorelle
homai che'l Sole/
Su'l mezzo
giorno
indrizza i caldi
reggi..."
29 LV
15, Pastoral
Landscape (London,
National
Gallery,
c.
1636),
M.
Roethlisberger,
Claude Lorrain: The
Painting,
London
1961, (here-
after
MRP), fig. 54; another version is in Rome
(Pallavicini coll., 1637,
MRP
fig. 55);
Pastoral
Landscape (Washington,
National
Gallery
of
Art,
1633-35; MR-C no.
30).
30
LV 39
(private coll.,
c.
1639;
MRP
fig. 99);
LV
155, Pastoral
Landscape (Duke
of
Rutland, 1661,
MRP
fig. 254, MR-C, no.
225).
31
Eclogue I, lines 51-53: "Fortunate
senex,
hic inter flumina nota/
Et fontis sacros
frigus captabis opacum...";
tr.
Lee, ibid., p.
33.
32
Theocritus, Idyll 1,
lines 68 and 118.
33
Sannazaro, ibid., Prosa IV;
ed.
cit., p. 32; Nash, ibid., p.
50.
34
Pastoral
Landscape
with the
Temple
of the
Sibyl
at Tivoli
(Melbourne,
National
Gallery
of Victoria, 1630-35;
MR-C
no.39);
LV
62,
Pastoral
Landscape (Duke
of
Wellington, 1641);
MRP
figs. 133,
131b.
Other
examples
include Wooded
Landscape
with Stream
(p.c., 1630;
MR-C no.
18); Landscape
with
Shepherds (p.c. 1636; MR-C no.
57).
35
Sannazaro, Arcadia, Prosa
IV, p. 32v; Nash, ibid., p.
51:
"pas-
tori belli... ambiduo di Arcadia &
egualmente
a cantare..." The source
is
Vergil's Eclogue VII, 1.4.
36
LV 11
(two versions, c. 1636:
formerly
Earl of
Haddington,
MRP
fig. 44, and
copy,
MRP
fig. 47;
MR-C no.
63);
LV 25
(painting unknown,
1637,
MRP
fig. 71, MR-C no.
96).
37
For LV
39, see n. 30
above;
MRP
fig. 99; MR-C no.
102?);
Pastoral
Landscape,
LV 42
(New York, Metropolitan Museum, 1639),
MRP
fig.
108.
38
Landscape
with
Country
Dance
(St Louis, Missouri,
c. 1630;
MR-C no.
12); Landscape
with
Country
Dance
(Florence, Uffizi, 1637;
MR-C no.
65); Landscape
with
Country Dance,
LV 13
(Earl
of
Yarborough, 1637; MRP
fig. 50, MR-C no.
67).
Another
country
dance
is
depicted
in LV 53
(Duke
of
Bedford,
Woburn
Abbey,
c.
1640;
MRP
fig. 122).
39
Anthony Blunt,
Art and Architecture in France
(3rd ed.,
Harmondsworth, 1970), p. 181;
M.
Kitson, Claude Lorrain: the Liber
Veritatis,
London 1978, p.
59. The
passage
to which Blunt refers is
pre-
sumably Georgic II, lines 527-531
(describing
the 'Rustick
pomp',
in
Dryden's version).
40
Sannazaro, ibid.,
ed. cit., Prosa III, p.
24v: "... tutti lieti con dilet-
tevoli
giochi,
intorno a
gli inghirlandati Buoi....(etc.)"; Nash, ibid., p.
42.
41
Sannazaro, ibid.,
ed.
cit.,
Prosa
II, p.19:
"... di
passo
in
passo
guidando
con I'usata verga
i
vagabondi greggi
che si imboscav-
ano...";
and Prosa
V, pp. 38v: "...
[i greggi]
li
quali
di
passo
in
passo
con le loro
campane per
le tacite selve...
(etc.)", Nash, ibid., p.
57.
42
Landscape
with
Shepherds (France, p.c., 1630-35; MR-C no.
32);
Pastoral
Landscape,
LV 18
(Duke
of Portland, 1637;
MRP
fig. 58,
MR-C no.
73).
43
Landscape
with
Imaginary
View from Tivoli
(London, p.c.,
1642;
MRP
fig. 138,
MR-C no.
131).
44
Cf. Leach, Vergil's Eclogues, esp. pp.
76-77.
45
Cf. Erwin
Panofsky,
"Poussin and the
Elegiac Tradition,"
in:
Meaning
in the Visual
Arts,
Princeton
1955, p.
300.
46
"Era
gia per
lo tramontare del sole...":
Sannazaro, ibid., pp.
37-37v; Nash, ibid., p.
55.
47
"...
luogo
veramente sacro... Hor
quivi
come la candida luna
con ritonda faccia
apparira
a'mortali
sopra
la universa
terra,
ti menero
io..."; ibid., p. 82v; Nash, ibid., p.
106.
48
Leach, Vergil's Eclogues, p.
78.
49
Cf.
Roethlisberger,
"The Dimension of time in the Art of Claude
Lorrain",
Artibus et
Historiae, 20
(1989), pp. 73-92; he concludes that
"the
representation
of the
passage
of time can be taken as the leitmotif
of his art..."
50
M.
Roethlisberger,
Claude Lorrain: the
Drawings, Berkeley
and
Los
Angeles,
1968 (hereafter
MRD),
no.
547, pp. 221-22;
cf.
p.
10.
51
For travellers'
responses
to the ruins of
Rome, cf.
esp.
Margaret McGowan, "Impaired
vision: the
experience
of Rome in
Renaissance
France", Renaissance
Studies, 8,
no.
3,1994, pp.
244-55.
52
On the
concept
of a "Golden
Age",
and its links with that of
Arcadia, cf. Charles
Fantazzi, "Golden
Age
in
Arcadia", Latomus,
XXIII
(1974), pp.
280-315.
53
Cf.
Vergil, Aeneid, VIII, lines 86-126. We are reminded that
Romulus himself was, according
to
tradition,
a
shepherd.
54
Cf. Leach, "Sacral-ldyllic Landscape Painting
and the Poems
of Tibullus' First
Book", Latomus,
XXXIX
(1980), pp. 47-69; idem, The
Rhetoric of
Space, Princeton, 1988, pp.
198-200.
55
Cf. Elaine
Fantham, "Images
of the
City: Propertius'
New-old
Rome",
in T.
Habinek, ed., The Roman Cultural
Revolution,
Cambridge, 1997, pp.
122-35.
56
Sannazaro, Arcadia,
ed.
cit., p.
24 verso.
57
LV
185, Landing
of Aeneas at Pallanteum
(1675,
Lord
Fairhaven, Anglesey Abbey);
MRP
fig.
301. Cf.
Leach, Vergil's
Eclogues,
pp. 57-58; Kitson,
Liber
Veritatis, pp. 168-69;
Helen
Langdon,
"The
Imaginative Geographies
of Claude Lorrain",
in C.
Chard and H.
Langdon (eds.), Transports,
New Haven and London,
1996, pp.
151-78.
58 "... i circostanti Pini movendo i loro
sommita, gli respondeano,
e le forestiere Querce dimenticate della
propria
selvatichezza abban-
donavano i nativi monti
per udirlo..."; ibid., p. 81; Nash, ibid., p.
104.
59
MRD,
no.
801, p.
301
(Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1656).
60
Sannazaro, ibid., "Argomento"
to Prosa
X, p. 78v.; Nash, ibid.,
p.
103.
61 "... il reverendo & sacro bosco... trovammo sotto una
pen-
dente
ripa,
fra ruinati sassi una
spelonca
vecchissima &
grande...
dentro di
quella
del medesimo sasso un bello
altare, formato da rus-
tiche mani de
pastori...."; ibid., p. 79v.; Nash, ibid., p.
102.
62 "Dinanzi alla
spelonca porgeva
ombra un
pino
altissimo &
spatioso
ad un ramo del
quale
una
grande
e bella
sampogna pende-
va..."; ibid., p.
79v
(Prosa X).
63 "saltan Fauni & Silvani/ Ridan li
prati,
& le correnti
linse...";
ibid., p.
29v
(Ecloga III); Nash,
ibid.
p. 47; Ovid, Metamorphoses, I,
193-94:
"..sunt,
rustica numina, Nymphae/ Faunique, Satyrique,
&
monticolae silvani..."
64 LV
55, Landscape
with a
Dancing Satyr
and Other
Figures
(Toledo, Ohio, Museum of Art, c.
1641;
MRP
fig. 123, MR-C,
no.
119),
Kitson, Liber Veritatis, p.
87.
152
65
Luba
Freedman,
The Classical Pastoral in the Visual
Arts, New
York, 1989.
66
"Finalmente
quanti
fanciulli &
magnanimi
Re furono nel
prio
tempo pianti,
da
gli
antichi
pastori, tutti se vedevano
quivi
transformati
fiori..."; Sannazaro, ibid., p.
86
(Prosa X); Nash, ibid., p.
111.
67 "...vedemmo in su la
porta dipinte
alcune
Selve, & colli bellis-
simi, &
copiosi
d'alberi
fronduti, & di mille varieta di
fiori,
tra
quali se
vedeano molti armenti che andevan
pascendo,
&
spatiandosi per
li
verdi
prati...
De
pastori
alcuni
mungievano...
altri sonavano sam-
pogne...
Ma
quel
che
piu
intentamente mi
piacque
di
mirare, erano
certe Ninfe
ignude...." Sannazaro, ibid., ed.
cit.., pp.
24v-25
(Prosa ill);
Nash, ibid., pp. 43-44; cf.
Langdon, "Imaginative Geographies", p.
157.
68
Sannazaro, ibid., p.
25v: "Et in un de' lati vi era
Apollo
biondis-
simo, il
quale appogiato
ad un bastone di selvatica Oliva
guardava gli
armenti di Admeto alla riva d'un fiume... non se avedea del
sagace
Mercurio che in habito
pastorale... gli
furava le vacche..." The
subject
occurs in
Metamorphoses, I, 680 ff.
69 The
phrase "paysage mystique"
is that of Pierre
Grimal,
in
"Les
Metamorphoses
d'Ovide et la Peinture
paysagiste
de
I'epoque
d'Auguste",
Revue des etudes romaines
(1938), pp. 145-61; cf.
Segal,
ibid., p.
45: "A secluded
grove, quiet water, shade, coolness, soft
grass,
sometimes rocks or a cavern..."
70
Segal, ibid., p. 74; Theocritus, Idylls 1, 1-3, 7-8, 105-7; 5, 31-
34, 45ff.; 7, 7-0, 135 ff; 22, 37-43.
71
Cf. C.
Segal, "Landscape
in Ovid's
Metamorphoses", Hermes,
Einzelshriften 23-25, 1969-70, pp.
1-7.
72 Cf.
Grimal, ibid., also L. P. Wilkinson, Ovid
Recalled, Cam-
bridge, 1955, pp.
180-81.
73 Cf.
Wilkinson, ibid., esp. pp.
180-81: "There are a dozen
extended
descriptions
of natural
scenery
in the
piece,
and
practically
all of them centre round
water, cool, calm and shaded... The water is
not
generally cascading,
but
gentle,
calm and
translucent, shaded
by
trees or
overarching
rocks..."
74
Cf.
Segal, ibid., pp.
16-17.
75
E.g. Eclogue X, lines 13-15: "The laurels
even, even the tama-
risks
wept
for
him/Lying
beneath a
lonely cliff; even Maenalus'/Pine
forests
wept
for
him, and cold
Lycaeus" ("Ilium
etiam
lauri, etiam fle-
vere
myricae, /Pinifer ilium
etiam, sola sub
rupe iacentem/ Maenalus
et
gelidi
fleverunt saxa
Lycaei...")
76 Cf.
Wilkinson, ibid., pp. 183-84; Grimal, ibid.; also
Roger Ling,
"Studius and the
beginnings
of Roman
landscape painting",
Journal of
Roman
Studies,
LXVII
(1977), pp.
1-16. Grimal concludes: "... il est cer-
tain...
qu'Ovide
s'est
souvenu, dans les
Metamorphoses,
de la
pein-
ture
paysagiste."
He sees this influence as
explaining
the
generalized
character of Ovid's
landscapes,
and also as
contributing
to a "roman-
tic"
quality ("la
couleur
romanesque") (ibid., pp. 159-60, 152, 154).
77
Cf. M.
Kitson, "The Altieri Claudes and
Virgil", Burlington
Magazine,
vol. 102
(1960), pp.
312-18. H.
Langdon,
Claude
Lorrain,
Oxford
1989, esp. p.141; Wine, Poetic
Landscape, pp.
93-103.
78 Cf. N.
Llewellyn, "Illustrating
Ovid"
(as
in note
5).
The
approach
of Northern artists such as Elsheimer was
generally "play-
ful" and
lighthearted,
and in some of his earlier Ovidian works Claude
shows an
affinity
with this
approach (cf. Kitson, Liber
Veritatis, p. 88,
writing
of LV
57).
79 The
inscription
is on the verso of LV
70, Coast Scene with
Mercury, Herse,
and
Aglauros, Rome, Rospigliosi-Pallavicini coll.,
1643;
MRP
fig. 142).
The
episode
occurs in
Metamorphoses, II, 708ff.
As Mrs Pattison first
noticed, the
inscription
is an almost verbatim tran-
scription
of
Horologgi's
notes to
Anguarilla's
translation
(Claude
Lorrain, 1884, p. 97; cf.
MRP, p. 212).
The
inscription
reads:
"Aglauro
che dimande a Mercurio
gran
soma di denari
per
lasciarr
goder
lam-
ore della sorella chiamata herse Favola cavata nell'annotatione del
secondo libro d'Ovidio". The reference is to Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio
ridotte da Gio. Andrea
dell'Anguarilla in ottava rima, 1st ed., 1583; refs.
here are to the 1584 edition, and the relevant
passage is on
p. 65.
80 Carlo Del Bravo, "Letture di Poussin e Claude", Artibus et
Historiae, 18
(1988), p. 151 and n. 7. As Del Bravo observes, both
Kitson and
Roethlisberger had attributed this episode to the Homeric
Hymn to Apollo. Del Bravo's chief concern in his article is to
empha-
size Poussin's debt to Anguarilla's translation of Ovid, and Claude's
interest in Plutarch, in
Amyot's translation
(p. 162);
I wish here to
emphasize Claude's reliance also on
Anguarilla's version of Ovid.
81 Cf. Ann Moss, Poetry and Fable: Studies in
Mythological
Narrative in
16th-Century France, Cambridge, 1984, p.
26.
82 For a
survey of the tradition of Ovidian illustrations, cf. M.D.
Henkel, Illustrierte
Ausgaben von Ovids
Metamorphosen im XV
XVI,
und XVII Jahrhundert, Hamburg, 1930.
83
Moss, Ovid in Renaissance
France, London, 1982, p.
90.
84
The illustration of
Polyphemus
in the 1619 French edition is
likely to have been a source for one of Poussin's
early
Ovidian draw-
ings for Marino; cf. note 138 below.
85 Svetlana Alpers, "The Tradition of the Illustrated Ovids and
Rubens' Sketches for the Torre de la Parada", in The Decoration of the
Torre de la Parada, Corpus Rubenianum
Ludwig Burchard, London
and New York, 1971, p. 79. The
prints illustrating Anguarilla's
transla-
tion, with a
full-page plate at the
beginning
of each book
incorporat-
ing various
episodes, are not
likely
to have been
directly
influential.
86
Seep.
18.
87 For J.W. Baur, cf. F. Hollstein, German
Engravings, Etchings
and Woodcuts, II, Amsterdam, 1954, p. 161f; Henkel, ibid., pp.
58-144.
Born c. 1600 in
Strasbourg,
Baur was in Rome and
Naples
from 1631
to 1637; he died in 1642, in Vienna.
88 The Judgement of Paris, MRP no. 201,
fig.
22
(not
in
Liber), pp.
461-2; Parnassus with Minerva
visiting
the Muses, 1680, LV 195
(Jacksonville, Florida, Cummer
Gallery
of Art; MRP
fig. 315).
The sub-
ject is
probably taken from
Metamorphoses, XV, 253 ff.
89 Cf. Kitson, Liber Veritatis, p. 95, claiming
that Claude
departs
from Ovid's text in
showing
the scene as
taking place
outside. See
note 79 above. Cf. Ovid, Met., II, 730: "vertit iter
caeloque petit
terrena
relicto"; Anguarilla trans., ed. cit., p. 56-57, esp.
stanza 276.
90 LV 70, again,
was made for
Rospigliosi,
who
may
well have
prescribed the
subject; cf. Kitson, Liber
Veritatis, p.
95
91
On Titian's Ovidian
paintings cf., inter alia, Llewellyn,
ibid.
92
Cf.
Russell, ibid., p.
85.
93
Landscape with the
Flaying
of
Marsyas (LV 45, Moscow,
Pushkin Museum, 1639-40; MRP
fig. 109; and LV 95, Holkham
Hall,
Earl of Leicester, 1645, MRP
fig. 176);
LV 45 was the first
mythological
scene represented in the Liber Veritatis; cf. Kitson, Liber
Veritatis, p.
80. The subject occurs in
Metamorphoses, VI, 383 ff.
94
Cf. Richard Spear, Domenichino, New Haven and London,
1982, cat. 55.i and pl. 181. The fresco is now in the National
Gallery,
London. The transformation of the old
shepherd
Battus is a
similarly
brutal
metamorphosis; he is turned to stone, having
witnessed the
theft of Admetus' herds
by Mercury. However, Claude avoids the
moment of
metamorphosis;
see
p.
10.
95
Cf. Wine, ibid., esp. pp. 18, 24.
96 Landscape with Ceres and Arethusa
(London, British
Museum,
c. 1635; MRD no. 113). The
story
occurs in
Metamorphoses, V, 487-89;
cf. also lines 572-76 and 642-43.
97
Eclogue X, lines 1-4.
98 The evidence is from an
inscription
on the verso of LV
70,
Mercury and Aglauros; cf. note 79 above.
153
CLAIRE PACE
99
Anguarilla,
ed.
cit.,
Book
V, p. 175, stanzas
197ff., esp.
stanza
201: "Tornando lassa da la caccia un
giorno / Sola, che le
compagne
havea
lasciate, /
Veggio
di
pioppi,
e salci un fiume adorno / Ambe le
sponde,
e d'ombre amene e
grate: / solo era il
loco, e'l sol
girando
intorno / Sul carro havea la
porigliosa State, / E il faticoso di cacciar
diletto / Di
doppia
State ardea lo stanco
petto..."
100
"... la Castita
fuggendo
la
lascivia,
e conosciuto
chiara, e
limpi-
da come
I'acque
chiare di un
fonte..."; Anguarilla trans., ed.
cit., p.
182.
101
Landscape
with
Narcissus,
LV 77
(London,
National
Gallery,
1644,
MRP
fig. 150).
The
subject
is from
Metamorphoses, III, 353ff., esp.
402f. This is one of
only
two
paintings
recorded as made for an
English
patron-possibly
for Sir Peter
Lely;
cf.
MRP, p.
222. For a
study
of the
iconography,
cf. Dora
Panofsky,
"Narcissus and
Echo",
Art
Bulletin,
XXXI
(1949), pp.
112 ff. and Oskar
Batschmann,
"Poussins Narziss und
Echo im
Louvre",
Zeitschrift fur
Kunstgeschichte,
XLII
(1979), pp.
31-47.
102
Cf. Andrea Alciati, Emblematum Liber
(1612), p.
127.
103
Domenichino's fresco is
repr.
in A.
Neppi,
Gli affreschi del
Domenichino a
Roma, 1958, pl. 2; Spear, ibid., cat no. 10,
iii and
pi.
13.
104
Metamorphoses, III,
407 ff. In
Anguarilla's translation, the
pas-
sage
runs
(p. 83,
stanza
162):
"Dentro un' ombrosa
selva,
a
pie
d'un
monte/ Dove
verdeggia
a lo
scoperto
un
prato,/ Sorge
una
chiara,
e
cristallina
fonte,/
Che confina a la linea di
quel
lato:/ Che, quando
equidistante
a
I'Orizonte / De I'Orto,
e de I'Occaso e il Sole alzato,/
L'ombrosa
spalla
del monte
difende,/
Che'l
piu
cocente Sol mai non
I'offende."
105
Anguarilla trans., ed.
cit., p.
99.
Horologgi's commentary
runs:
"La favola di Narciso e assai chiara, per
se
stessa,
onde
per
venir
all'Allegoria
diro che
per
Echo si
puo
intendere I'immortalita dei
nomi,
amata molto da
gli spiriti alti,
e
nobili,
ma
poco prezzata
da i
Narcisi,
che dati alle delicie s'innamorano miseramente di se
medesimi;
e al
fine
poi
son trasformati in
fiori,
che la mattina sono
vaghi,
e la sera
guasti,
cvsi
questi
venendo a morte
rimangono sepolti
insieme con
i loro nomi eternamente..."
106
The
story
is taken from
Metamorphoses, VII,
690 ff.
107
For Martin Davies'
suggestion
that LV 91 is related to a
play
by
Niccolo da
Correggio,
cf. National
Gallery catalogue,
The French
School, 1957 ed., p.
32. The
depictions
of Diana
reuniting Cephalus
and Procris are: LV 91
(London,
National
Gallery, 1645;
MRP
fig.
171);
LV 163
(Earl
of
Plymouth,
1664, MRP
fig. 264);
MRP no. 233
(Rome,
Galleria
Doria-Pamphilj,
c.
1645-46,
MRP
fig. 173);
and MRP
no.
243, fig.
24
(painting destroyed, formerly Berlin, mid-1630s;
not
in
Liber).
108 The
story
occurs in
Metamorphoses, VII,
752
ff.; Anguarilla
trans.,
ed. cit., pp. 256ff., esp. p.
261. As Del Bravo
noted, Anguarilla
refers to the
nymphs surrounding
Procris and it
may
be one of these
who
appears
with
Cephalus
and Procris (ed. cit., p. 261, stanza
297):
"II confessato errore,
il
prego,
e'l
pianto/
Col mezzo de le Ninfe e de
gli amici/ Con I'indurata mia
moglie
fer
tanto, / Che scaccio dal suo
cor le
volge
ultrici". Cf. Del
Bravo, ibid.,
n. 140.
109
MRP no.
243, fig. 24,
as in note 107.
110
The
painting
has
disappeared, though
a
copy
survives in the
National
Gallery,
London. Cf LV
100; 1646-47
(MRP fig. 100); Kitson,
Liber Veritatis
p.
115.
111
Ed. cit., p. 267,
stanza 317;
cf. also stanza 318: "Mentre il
piu
caldo
giorno
il mondo
ingombra, / E
I'aere,
e'l bosco non si move, e
tace, / Et io son corso a
riposarmi
a I'ombra, / [...] Tu, che sei il mio
riposo,
e la mia
pace..."(etc.)
Russell
(ibid.)
has
suggested
a
possible
debt to the "Ovide moralise"; e.g.
she
proposes
that in the
depiction
of
Cephalus
and Procris reunited
by Diana, the
figure
of the
goddess
Diana
may
be identified with the
Virgin Mary, giving
the scene
Christian
significance. However,
she concedes that Claude's
repre-
sentations in
general
"are not emblematic or esoteric" and with that I
must concur.
112
The source is
Metamorphoses, II,
680-707.
113
E.g.
LV 92
(Rome
Galleria
Doria-Pamphilj,
c.
1645;
MRP
fig.
172);
LV 128
(1654, destroyed;
MRP
fig. 217);
LV 135
(Earl
of
Leicester,
Holkham
Hall, 1654-55;
MRP
fig. 232);
LV 152
(Wallace coll., 1660,
MRP
fig. 250).
114
Cf.
Kitson,
Liber
Veritatis, p.
111.
115
Kitson, ibid., p.
111.
116
Kitson, ibid., p.
111.
117
Ibid., p. 158. LV
170, Landscape
with
Apollo
and
Mercury (p.c.,
1666;
MRP
fig. 275).
118
LV 192
(painting lost);
cf. MRP
Fig.
312. See note 80 above. Cf.
Anguarilla trans.,
ed. cit., p. 56, stanza 266: "... Lanimo verso
Apollo
amico e buono/ Gli die
questo istrumento,
e insieme I'arte/ Gli
insegno..."
119
Landscape
with
Mercury
and
Battus, Chatsworth, 1663
(MRP
no.
159);
the
subject
is from
Metamorphoses, II, 676-707; Anguarilla
trans.,
ed.
cit., p. 55, stanza 258.
120 "Et in
quel
medesimo
spatio
stava Batto
palesator
del furto
transformato in
sasso"; Sannazaro, ibid., p.
25
verso; Nash, ibid., p.
43.
121 "E poco piu basso si vedeva
pur Mercurio, che sedendo ad
una
gran pietra
con
gonfiate guancie
sonava una
sampogna,
& con gli
occhi torti mirava una bianca vitella, che vicina
gli stava, & con
ogni
astutia
s'ingegnava
di
ingannare
lo occhiuto
Argo..."; Sannazaro,
ibid., p.
25
verso; Nash, ibid., p. 43;
cf.
Metamorphoses, I, 644
ff.;
Anguarilla trans.,
ed. cit., p.
18.
122
Landscape
with
Argus guarding lo,
LV 86
(Earl
of
Leicester,
Holkham Hall, c.
1645;
MRP
fig. 164);
LV 98
(painting unknown,
c.
1646;
MRP
fig. 179).
It is
likely,
as
Roethlisberger suggests,
that
Massimi
proposed
the
subject
to
Claude;
cf. also the recent discus-
sion of Massimi's
patronage
of Claude in Victoria
Gardner, "Cardinal
Camillo
Massimi, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain: A
Study
of
Neostoic
Patronage
in
Baroque
Rome"
(unpublished
Ph. D.
thesis,
University
of
Pennsylvania, 1998), esp. pp.
184 ff. This thesis was
available to me
only
when the
writing
of this article was
completed.
The relevant
passage
in Ovid is
Metamorphoses, I, 652-4; Anguarilla
trans.,
ed.
cit., pp.
18-19
(stanzas
164
ff.)
123 It has been
suggested
that Massimi
may
have been
responsi-
ble for this close adherence to Ovid's
text;
cf.
Gardner,
ibid.
124 LV 149,
Landscape
with Juno
Confiding
lo to the Care of
Argus, (Dublin,
National
Gallery
of
Ireland, 1660);
cf. MRP
fig.
246
(the
subject
is from
Metamorphoses, I,
610
ff);
LV
150, Landscape
with
Mercury
and
Argus (p.c., 1660);
cf. MRP
fig.
247
(from Metamorpho-
ses, I,
664 ff.; Anguarilla trans.,
ed.
cit., pp. 19-20).
Claude also made
an
etching
of this
composition
in
1662;
cf. L.
Mannocci, The
Etchings
of Claude
Lorrain,
New Haven and
London, 1989, cat. 42.
125 Coast Scene with
Apollo
and the Cumaean
Sibyl (LV 99,
St
Petersburg, Hermitage, 1646);
from
Metamorphoses, XIV, 132-55;
cf.
MRP
fig. 180, Kitson, Liber
Veritatis, pp.
114-15.
126 The ruins have been identified as the Trofei di Mario, now on
the
Capitol,
but at one time
part
of the fountain called the
Aqua Martia;
engravings showing
them as still
part
of the fountain existed in the
seventeenth
century (e.g.
in
Sandrart),
and Claude
probably
used one
of these; cf. Kitson, Liber Veritatis, pp. 114-15; MRP, p.
262. For the
suggestion
that the
paintings
are linked
by
a Neostoic theme,
cf.
Gardner, ibid., p.
190.
127
Landscape
with Three Heliades
Searching
for the Dead
Phaeton,
LV
143;
MRP
pp. 340-42; painting unknown, though
three
copies
exist. The
subject,
from
Metamorphoses, II, 340 ff.,
is identified
by
an
inscription
on the verso of the Liber Veritatis
drawing (d. 1657);
cf.
Anguarilla
trans. ed.
cit., pp. 40-41; Kitson, ibid., p.
141.
154
128
MRD no.
547, pp.
221-2
(Rome,
Pallavicini coil.,
c.
1645).
129
Metamorphoses, II,
343 ff.
("Luna quater
iunctis
inplerat
cornibus
orbem...")
For the connection of
moonlight
with a sacred
aura in Sannazaro, cf. n. 47 above.
130
Cf. Nash, ibid., p.
58f.
131
Coast Scene with Acis and
Galatea,
LV
141, Dresden,
Gemaldegalerie,
1657
(a cupid
and two doves were added
later);
MRP
fig.
236.
132
Kitson,
Liber Veritatis, p.
140. These moods he describes as
"symbolised pictorially by
the combination of the sun low over the
horizon and the thunderclouds at the
upper right..."
133 Cf.
Metamorphoses, XIII, 750
ff., esp.
778ff. In
Anguarilla's
ver-
sion (ed. cit., p. 474,
stanza
271):
"Un monte
lungo
in mar tanto si
stende,/ Che
quasi I'onda il
cinge d'ogn'
intorno./ II fiero innamorato
un di v'ascende,/ Per volervi
passar parte
del
giorno./
II
gregge,
se
ben cura ei non ne
prende,/
Va
seco,
e
presso
al suo
pasce sog-
giorno,/
E
giunge,
mentre ne la costa ei
siede, / Quasi al
giogo
col
crin, col
piede
al
piede..."
134
Cf.
Segal, ibid., pp.
21-22.
135
MRD 802
(Windsor Castle, 1657);
MRD
fig. 1178;
MRD no. 435
(and see below,
n.
164).
136
According
to
mythographers, Polyphemus
is an
allegorised
embodiment of
thunderstorms,
formed of earth and
air;
cf.
Comes,
Mythologie (tr.
J. Baudoin, Paris, 1627),
where the
Cyclops'
violent
nature is
explained
as
resulting
from the mixture.
Vigenere's
translation
of Philostratus also links
Polyphemus
to thunder and
lightening (Les
Images...,
1614 ed., p. 443).
Sheila
McTighe
has an
illuminating
dis-
cussion of this
interpretation,
in relation to Poussin's
Landscape
with
Polyphemus,
in Poussin's
Landscape Allegories, Cambridge,
1996.
137 Cf. p. 1 above. The idea that the
Cyclops
inhabited a Golden
Age
is found in,
for
example,
Blaise de
Vigenere,
Les
Images
ou
Tableaux de Platte Peinture des deux
Philostrates...,
Paris 1615
ed.,
pp.
438 ff.
138 For Poussin's
early drawing,
cf. W. Friedlander and A. F.
Blunt,
The
Drawings
of
Poussin, III, London, 1953, pi. 139,
no.
162;
P
Rosenberg
and A.
Prat, Les Dessins de Poussin, Paris, 1994, I, no. 12
(pp. 20-21).
139 Cf. J.
Costello,
"Poussin's
Drawings
for
Marino", Journal of the
Warburg
and Courtauld
Institutes, XVIII, 1955, pp. 296-317; Blunt,
Nicolas
Poussin, I, p. 40,
n. 97.
140 P.
Rosenberg,
in exh.
cat., Nicolas
Poussin,
Rome and
Dusseldorf, 1978-79,
no.
19;
cf. also exh. cat., Poussin: Sacraments
and
Bacchanals, Edinburgh, 1981,
no. 7.
141
Landscape
with
Polyphemus (1649,
St
Petersburg, Hermitage
Museum).
For an
illuminating explication
of the connotations of the
painting,
cf.
McTighe, ibid., esp. pp.
40 ff.
142
Metamorphosis
of the
Apulian Shepherd,
LV 142
(Duke
of
Sutherland, 1657;
MRP
fig.
237 and MRD no.
806, p. 303).
The
subject
is from
Metamorphoses, XIV, 517-28.
143
Kitson, Liber Veritatis, pp.
140-41.
144
Lines 517-26: "An
Apulian shepherd
of that
region
caused
[the
nymphs]
to run
away
in terror. But
soon.....they
returned to the choral
dancing again
with nimble feet..."
("Apulus
has illa
pastor regione
fugatas/
terruit et
primo
subita formidine movit: / mox, ubi mens rediit et
contempsere sequentem,/
ad numerum motis
pedibus
dux ere chore-
as...". Cf. also
Anguarilla trans., ed. cit., p. 505, Stanzas 217 ff. and
p.
518.
145
MRD,
no. 805
(Haarlem, Teyler Museum,
c.
1657)
The
subject
is from
Metamorphoses, XIV, 517-26.
146 On the
significance
of the rural
dance,
cf.
Russell, ibid.,
Introd.
p.
91 and
cat.,
P
14,
24 and
esp.
D 56. The dance occurs also in
Claude's
etching
of Time, Apollo
and the Seasons of 1662
(cf.
L.
Manocci,
The
Etchings
of Claude
Lorrain,
New Haven and
London,
1989, pp.
267 ff.,
no.
43; Russell, ibid.,
cat. no. G. 50.
This,
and the
recently
rediscovered
painting
of the same
subject
attributed to
Claude
by Roethlisberger,
were made for
Rospigliosi,
the learned
patron
for whom Poussin
painted
the work now entitled Dance to the
Music of Time
(London,
Wallace
Collection, c.
1638-40).
Cf.
Roethlisberger,
"Claude Lorrain's 'Dance of the Seasons"', Pantheon
XLV
(1987), pp.
103-6.
147 Cf.
Llewellyn,
ibid.
(with bibliog.)
The
story
occurs in Meta-
morphoses, II, 843 ff.
(Anguarilla trans., pp.
60
ff.)
148 The versions of the Coast Scene with the
Rape
of
Europa
com-
prise:
a
painting
of 1634
(Fort Worth, Texas,
Kimbell Art
Museum;
cf.
Kitson in
Burlington Magazine, CXV, 1973, pp. 175-79);
an
etching
also
of 1634
(Manocci,
no.
14);
LV 111
(Utrecht,
Centraal
Museum, 1647;
MRP
fig. 193);
LV 136
(Moscow,
Pushkin
Museum, 1655),
with later
copy,
Coll. H.M. the
Queen, 1667;
MRP
fig. 278);
LV 144
(p.c. 1658;
MRP
fig.
239.
149
Cf.
Segal, ibid., pp.
58-59.
150
Russell, following Kitson, suggests
that Claude has here
ignored
the essential
point
of Ovid's
story.
Kitson writes of the Fort
Worth
painting
that "the bull will never
plunge
into the sea..."
(cit.
Russell, ibid., cat. P
15)
151 Cf. 1619 ed. of
Metamorphoses (tr. Renouard), p. 69;
for
a
copy
of the Barberini mosaic of the
Rape
of
Europa,
cf. PS.
Bartoli,
Le Pitture antiche, Append,
tab.xii. As Helen Whitehouse has
observed,
it is
surprising
that this mosaic is not
represented among
the
copies
in Cassiano's
paper museum; cf.
Whitehouse, "Copies
of
Roman
Paintings
and Mosaics in the
Paper Museum", Cassiano dal
Pozzo's
Paper Museum,
I
(Quaderni puteani, 2), 1992, pp. 109-10;
there
is, however,
a
copy
of a similar mosaic
depicting Europa
and the
Bull
(RL 19223, repr. ibid., fig. 3).
152
Kitson, Burlington Magazine (as in n.
148).
153
Landscape
with
Psyche
at the Palace of
Amor,
LV 162
(London,
Nat.
Gallery, 1664);
cf. M.
Wilson,
The Enchanted Castle
(London, 1982)
and M.
Levey, Burlington Magazine,
CXXX
(Nov. 1988),
suggesting
the latter
interpretation;
also H.D.
Russell, 'The
Psyche
Pendants' in P. Askew
(ed.),
Claude Lorrain
(Washington,
Nat.
Gallery
Symposium, 1982).
Ariadne on
Naxos,
LV 139
(Arnot
Art
Museum,
Elmira, NY, 1656; MRP, fig. 233).
The
subject may
be
inspired by
a
pas-
sage
from
Metamorphoses,
VII
(cf. Kitson, Liber
Veritatis, p. 139).
154 LV
184,
Coast Scene with Perseus
('The Origin
of
Coral')
(Holkham,
Earl of
Leicester, 1674,
MRP
fig. 299);
cf also
MRD, no. 1067.
155 For Perseus, cf. the recent discussion of Claude's
painting
in
Gardner, ibid., p.
196ff. She
points
out that Perseus
figured largely
in
the
iconography
of the Farnese
family.
156 Gardner
interprets
Claude's
paintings
for Massimi in the con-
text of the
patron's
Neostoic beliefs.
157 The
subject
occurs in
Metamorphoses, IV,
740-49.
Anguarilla
trans.,
ed.
cit., p. 145, Stanzas 436 ff.
158 Cf MRD no.
1064, Russell, ibid.,
cat.
no.69,
with
inscription:
"Claudio/ fecit/ pensier
de Illmo/ il Cardinale de
Massim[o]".
This
might signify
a
preliminary drawing,
or
alternatively,
and more
proba-
bly, correspond
to the "concetto"of Massimi
(cf. Russell, ibid., p. 286).
In
my view,
both Russell and Gardner are correct to
emphasize
the
close collaboration between Claude and Massimi here.
159
Anguarilla trans., ed.
cit., p. 145, stanza 436. For Poussin's
drawing,
cf. Friedlander and
Blunt, ibid., III, pl. 164,
no.
224;
Rosenberg-Prat, ibid, I,
no. 36
(pp. 68-69).
160
Vigenere,
Les
Images (1615 ed.), p.
75
("Les Marescages"):
"...rien
que
ce soit ne se trouve en tout le
genre vegetal qui approche
plus
de la nature
humaine, que les Palmiers...".
155
CLAIRE PACE
161
Cf. Russell, ibid. cat. D 69-73.
162
Cf. MRD no. 1064 and no. 1066
(New York, Metropolitan
Museum of
Art);
MRD no. 1065
(Paris,
Musee du
Louvre);
MRD no.
1067 (Viscount Coke);
MRD 1068
(London,
British
Museum); Russell,
ibid.,
Cats. D 69-73.
163
E.g. MR-C, no. 13
(New York, p.c., 1630); MR-C, no. 17
(Houston,
Museum of Fine
Arts, 1630).
Cf.
Roethlisberger,
"De Bril
a Claude", Revue de I'Art, 5
(1969), pp. 54-60, esp. pp.
58-59.
164 MRP
p.
434 and
fig.722;
MRD no. 862. Russell
suggests
that
the rock arch
may
be intended to
represent
Mount Helicon
(ibid., p.
291).
The
drawing
raises the
question
of the extent of Claude's knowl-
edge
of
antique painting.
It should be recalled that
many
of the most
celebrated
examples
of
mythological landscape painting
from classi-
cal
antiquity
now known to us were not excavated at the time.
However, copies
were made for Massimi
by
P.S. Bartoli of other
antique landscape paintings
in the same volume as that which
includes his
copy
of the Barberini
landscape (see
n.
167).
165 On the "Barberini
Landscape"
cf.
esp.
H. Whitehouse and N.
Turner in The
Paper
Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo
(Quaderni puteani
4), 1993, pp. 113-14, cats. nos. 68 and 69; also
Whitehouse, "Copies
of Roman
Paintings
and Mosaics in the
Paper Museum", Cassiano dal
Pozzo's
Paper Museum,
I
(Quaderni
Puteani 2, 1992), pp, 116-17, and
fig.
7.
166 Rubens, letter to
Peiresc,
16 March 1632;
in R.
Magurn (ed.),
Letters of P. P
Rubens, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 403-4, no. 238.
167 The
copy
for the Dal Pozzo collection is now in the
Royal
Library;
cf.
Whitehouse, ibid. and that made for
Massimi, in
Glasgow
University Library (MS Gen.1496);
cf. article
by present
writer in
Papers
of the British School at
Rome, XLVII
(1979), pp.117-55.
Bartoli
also made
copies
for Massimi of the
manuscript
"Vatican
Virgil",
some of these have a dominant
landscape
element. Cf. D.H.
Wright,
"The
Study
of Ancient
Virgil
Illustrations from
Raphael
to Cardinal
Massimi",
in Cassiano dal Pozzo's
Paper Museum,
I (as in note
151),
pp. 260-83.
168 Lucas Holste
(or Holstenius),
Vetus
pictura nymphaeum
refer-
ens commentariolo
explicata, Rome, 1676; the
essay
was
published
posthumously
but written several
years
earlier. For Holste's
interpre-
tation of the rock arch as a
Nymphaeum,
cf.
esp. McTighe, ibid., pp.
107 ff. As she
writes, "Porphyry interprets
the cave described
by
Homer as the site of the
generation
of souls into
nature..."; the
Barberini
landscape,
in Holste's
interpretation, represents
"the
image
of
Porphyry's allegory".
169 MRD
no.1064, New
York, Metropolitan Museum, Lehman coll.;
Russell, ibid., Cat. D 69.
170
MRD no.
1065, Paris, Louvre,
RF
4601; Russell, ibid.,
Cat. D
70. The elaborate
pictorial sheet, perhaps
a
presentation drawing
made for
Massimi,
in the
Metropolitan
Museum
(MRD
no. 1066,
Russell, ibid., Cat D
71)
is similar in
compositional format, though larg-
er, and on cream
paper
with a bluish wash.
171 Russell
argues
that it is a
moonlight scene, pointing
out that
the time of
day given
in inventories does not
always agree
with what
we
perceive,
and that the
change
from white to blue
paper (rarely
used
by Claude)
must have some
significance (ibid., p. 287).
The
Massimi
inventory
refers to it as a sunrise: "Un Paese di Monsu
Claudio con la favola di
Perseo,
con la levata del sole"
(cf.
M.
Pomponi, ed.,
"La Collezione del Cardinale Massimo e I'inventario del
1677",
in Camillo Massimo: Collezionista di Antichita-Fonti e mate-
riali, Rome, 1996, pp. 91-157, esp. p.
100
(no. 165).
156

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