SCHIAVONE, Andrea

Tortured contortions after the style of Parmigianino and the sophisticated elaboration of narrative and atmosphere combine to dull Saul’s illumination on the road to Damascus in the dusty tones of the earth-laden wind.

The subject of the picture was taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the jealous Juno catches Jupiter with Io. To save his lover Jupiter transforms her into a cow and entrust her to Argus.

The landscape is the main subject of the painting, the human figures are only staffages.

Recently the attribution of this painting was given to Lambert Sustris, a painter from Amsterdam who worked with Titian in Venice.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 38 minutes):

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony in C Major (Jupiter-Symphony) K 551

This etching is from the series Christ and the Twelve Apostles.

In this painting, the direct impact of the Titian’s Diana and Actaeon is evident in the picturesquely rusticated classical architecture on the left background, and especially in the descending chain of mountains on the right. In the left foreground, the infant Jupiter is shown with three nymphs and the goat Amalthea, to whom he was entrusted by his mother to protect him from his child-eating father Cronus. The wild Curetes, whose noise helped save the infant by drowning his cries, are interpreted by the painter as musicians playing Renaissance viola da gambas and a recorder. Despite his lack of interest in anatomical accuracy, Schiavone succeeds in investing his composition with great rhythmical fluency.