TEMPESTA, Antonio

The subject of the engraving is taken from Ovid. Diana’s nymphs were expected to be as chaste as the goddess herself. One of them, Callisto, was seduced by Jupiter who first disguised himself as Diana in order to gain the nymphs presence. Her pregnancy was eventually noticed by Diana who punished Callisto by changing her into a a bear and setting the dogs on her. But Jupiter snatched her up to heaven just in time.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 38 minutes):

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

The print depicts the mythological scene when the centaur Nessus attempts to abduct Hercules’ beloved Deianira. In the background Hercules aims the fatal arrow at Nessus.

In this composition Tempesta opted for a wide format, which enabled him to leave an open space in the centre. There, Paul lies on the ground, while Christ in the sky directly above him literally showers him with light.

In the 1590s virtuoso paintings on copper or stone had gained prominent positions in Italian collections. The most positive attributes of paintings of this type were delicacy, refinement, and the display of artistic skill. Tempesta, a Florentine artist, successfully combined the late sixteenth-century northern techniques of artists such as Johannes Stradanus with Tuscan refinement. Tempesta’s long and varied career shows that it was possible to paint as well on a very small scale as in fresco, the most disparate of materials. His compositions were admired by more original and brilliant painters. His collections of prints were used by painters as models for their compositions throughout the first half of the seventeenth century. His jewel-like paintings on alabaster, lapis lazuli and stone were circulated among the connoisseurs in Rome. The artist often designed elaborate frames, decorated with enamel, for his paintings.

In the Death of Adonis, a hunting theme, conveyed by a party of minute hunters in the distant background, and a mythological theme are combined. A more correct title for the painting might be the Hunt of Meleager. The figures dashing onto the usually empty but here thronged scene are not in fact the goddess of Love and her entourage, but the companions of Meleager and the bellicose Atlanta.

Antonio Tempesta in collaboration with Otto van Veen published in 1612 in Antwerp a series of thirty-six etchings on the Batavians and the Romans in a book entitled Batavorum cum Romanis bellum. The picture shows one of the etchings.