Sneak Preview Renaissance Visions Myth and Art By Patrick Hunt Included in this preview: • Title and Copyright pages • Table of Contents • Preface • Chapter 1 For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x71 or via e-mail at [email protected] Renaissance Visions Myth and Art PATRICK HUNT Ariel Books New York Patrick Hunt has taught in the Humanities at Stanford University since 1994. He is the author of many articles on the intersection of mythology, archaeology, ancient science, and art history. He directs the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project and the National Geographic Society Hannibal Expedition (2007-2008). Hunt earned his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaelogy, UCL, University of London. Along with monographs, novellas, and other writing, Patrick has written Caravaggio, an art historical biography and critical book on the Baroque genius painter. It has been highly acclaimed in reviews; the Art Newspaper International in London described it as “first-class” and “a rattling good yarn.” He has presented the genre of new myth fable at the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference. His archaeology books include Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History. Other University Readers titles by Patrick Hunt: Alpine Archaeology, ISBN 978-1-934269-00-8 Myths for All Time: Selected Greek Stories Retold, ISBN 978-1-934269-09-1 Rembrandt: His Life in Art - Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-934269-03-9 Copyright © 2008 by Patrick Hunt Cover Design by Monica Hui Hekman Reproduction of Mantegna’s SAMSON AND DELILAH courtesy of National Gallery London for academic publishing only. All other images in the public domain. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or using any other information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in the United States of America in 2008 by University Reader Company, Inc. 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-934269-14-5 (paper) CONTENTS Preface . .5 Chapter 1 Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.........................................7 Chapter 2 Mantegna’s Samson and Delilah...................................21 Chapter 3 Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda and the Swan ............................31 Chapter 4 Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne . .41 Chapter 5 Titian’s Death of Actaeon.........................................61 Chapter 6 Titian’s Abduction of Europa . .67 Chapter 7 Bruegel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus . 73 Chapter 8 Michelangelo’s Delphic Sibyl .....................................79 Chapter 9 Michelangelo’s Cumaean Sibyl ....................................89 Chapter 10 Caravaggio’s Bacchus ............................................97 Chapter 11 Caravaggio’s Narcissus . .105 Chapter 12 Caravaggio’s Raising of Lazarus. .. 111 Bibliography . .. .. .. .117 Notes . .. .. .. .125 Index . .. .. .. .141 Preface “To think is to speculate with images…” GIORDANO BRUNO (1532-1600) Mythology is one of the more profound ways we humans creatively respond when imagin- ing time and eternity or when thinking about themes and ideas in cyclical history and our place therein. How much more satisfying when artists of the Renaissance or any other period look at mythology with fresh insight or new ideas transformed into pictures, sculptures and the like. Their visions thus become even more powerful in the ability to inspire us to ponder such ideas in visual terms; as Bruno suggests, that thinking itself requires images to become empowered. As if to pontificate on what is intellectually acceptable, most modern connotations of spec- ulation carry a degree of risk, of gambling either with logic or some other capital. Specula- tion, however, as Bruno uses the verb, embeds the idea that seeing (from Latin specula) is not a negative but is possible pioneering made from a watchtower over a scouted landscape, at its best a form of exploration. In the modern mind there might be more than just suggestion that speculation could be both fantastic and idiosyncratic rather than based on reality and commonly seen and appreciated by all. Yet Myth, by its imaginary nature, seems to always invite speculation and even some personalizing, especially when the culture that originally imagined a myth is an ancient one, possibly no longer existing or having transformed almost beyond recognition. Myth also invites speculation when meaning is not limited to one set of hermeneutics but can instead have a kaleidoscope of turns and be deliberately ambiguous. This is why it is always safer for skilled mythographers and art historians – like good histo- riographers - to research knowable dates and references, with archives and correspondence, with provenance and bills of sale (always incredibly valuable resources) rather than suspect iconologies and iconographies and the labyrinths of meaning. All that said, this small book makes no apology for venturing into speculative territory at times. These twelve myth subjects rendered by Renaissance masters are arbitrarily selected 5 6 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art here not just because they are beautiful or because they are necessarily the greatest paint- ings by these masters or even the most important myths, however that might be decided by anyone, but rather because they have moved this author in some way to look at them more closely again and again. In fact, I never tire of looking at them. My ideas are never as grand or profound as these myth paintings themselves, but I claim them as my own, while also acknowledging others’ excellent observations gathered over many years. Botticelli, Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Bruegel, Michelangelo and Caravaggio have all inspired many generations with these and many more images beside. That they found these particular myths - the Birth of Venus, Samson and Delilah, Leda and the Swan, Bacchus and Ariadne, Europa and the Bull, Diana and Actaeon, the fall of Icarus, the Oracle of Delphi, the Sibyl of Cumae, Bacchus-Dionysus, Narcissus and Lazarus - worthy of their attention and their own visual speculation draws us back to them after centuries. The Re- naissance is rich in newly-rediscovered mythology, and so many subjects beckon not se- lected here, many also ekphrases or visual descriptions of ancient Classical texts in one way or another. Caravaggio is also included here because he bridges between the Renaissance and Baroque, of which he is a pioneer. Although some might wonder why a few Jewish and Christian tales are included, it is because they also touch something deeper and older. If these artists intended viewers to see even a small portion of the ideas covered in this small book, which is mostly unknowable, then I am content to trod over ground that far more wise than I have also already covered. I acknowledge my debt to them. Although the artists and paintings selected here may not have been deeply in touch with all the literary and artis- tic traditions discussed in this book, the fact that they painted them carefully within these myths’ detailed narratives is proof that myth came alive for them as each artist interpreted the stories anew. I must thank those who inspire me and to them this book is dedicated. Richard Martin is a wise bard who delights all with his deep love of mythology. Jenny March is a poet’s sage who can hear the wind in the wing beats of Pegasus. Most of all, Pamela, my wife, is the Muse whose lovely voice I follow even when blind. I also want to thank Jessica Knott for her superb editing. Patrick Hunt Stanford University January, 2008 Chapter 1 SANDRO BOTTICELLI’S BIRTH OF VENUS, C. 1484 Uffizi Gallery, Florence (172.5 x 278.5 cm) Introduction If there is one painting able to sum up the new beauty of Renaissance art, it could eas- ily be Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, “incomparable” as Lightbown rightfully praises.1 It may also be among the first important masterpieces to break from Medieval and Renaissance Christian tradition, becoming the virtual “icon”2 of Renaissance Humanism in art, signal- ing independence by depicting a “pagan” mythological theme. So it can also symbolically be about the birth of the Renaissance, although Botticelli would not have made such a case however innovative its vision. On the other hand, however pioneering in certain aspects, Malcolm Bull singles out Botticelli’s Venus images as isolated mythographic instances that do not actually develop further iconography of Venus as the Renaissance would come to understand it.3 Not even originally titled the “Birth of Venus” (this title was a nineteenth century invention), it may have instead been originally named Venus Landing on the Shore. Little historic wrangling over its inspiration and its meaning, however, can detract from this painting’s enormous status in Renaissance art. A large, almost 2 by 3 meters, canvas painted in tempera probably between 1484-86 for Lorenzo di Pierfrancsco (one of the Medici family branches) and later acquired by Co- simo de Medici, it hung at the Villa Castello in Florence possibly as early as 1485 and most certainly by 1540. It was likely intended as a wall decoration for one of the villa’s state chambers, but also may have celebrated love itself and perhaps even the nuptials of the famously beautiful Simonetta Vespucci who seems to be its model for Venus. Simon- etta’s home was in the legendarily reputed birthplace of Venus for Italians, the thus-named coastal Porto Venere. 7 8 Renaissance Visions: Myth and Art Botticelli’s Birth of Venus Economical in composition and simple in its number of fi gures, the Birth of Venus highlights only beauty as its subject. Its fi gures divided in three parts, at the left the western benevolent wind Zephyr embraces a wind nymph (probably Aura) as both fl y through the air blowing Venus to shore on her shell soon after her birth, where the Hora of Spring, Chloris, waits to wrap Venus in a fl oral-embroidered pink mantled cape.