[New post] Legends of Orpheus in paint: 2 Loss and death
hoakley posted: "In the first of these two articles showing paintings of the myths of Orpheus, I had left him convincing Persephone and Hades that Eurydice should be allowed to leave the Underworld, on the strict understanding that at no time until they reached the earth " The Eclectic Light Company
In the first of these two articles showing paintings of the myths of Orpheus, I had left him convincing Persephone and Hades that Eurydice should be allowed to leave the Underworld, on the strict understanding that at no time until they reached the earth above could he look back, or she would be taken back into the Underworld for ever.
The couple trekked up through the gloom, and were just reaching the brighter edge of the Underworld when Orpheus could resist no longer, and looked back to make sure that his wife was still coping with the ardours of their journey. The moment that he did, she faded away, back into Hades' realm. As he tried to grasp her, his hands clutched at the empty air. She was gone.
Orpheus tried to persuade the ferryman to take him back across the River Styx into the Underworld, but was refused, and for a week he just sat there in his grief. He then spent three years avoiding women, in spite of their attraction to him, and brought shade to an exposed meadow with his singing.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Orpheus and Eurydice (1636-38), oil on canvas, 194 × 245 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Wikimedia Commons.
Peter Paul Rubens' atmospheric painting of the flight of Orpheus and Eurydice (1636-38) was made during his later years of retirement, not long before his death. Orpheus, clutching his lyre, is leading Eurydice away from Hades and Persephone, as they start their journey back to life. Unusually, he opts for a real-world version of Cerberus at the bottom right corner.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861), oil on canvas, 44 x 54 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston TX. Wikimedia Commons.
Camille Corot's Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861) shows the couple as they near the light at the exit of the underworld. Orpheus is instantly recognisable by his lyre, held high in front of him, and both are clearly moving towards the right of the painting, the edge of the dark wood. Rather than use an abstract form to represent the underworld, Corot has used a wood, with a pool in the middle distance. Behind that are spirits of the dead, some still grieving their death.
Edward Poynter (1836–1919), Orpheus and Eurydice (1862), other details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Edward Poynter's Orpheus and Eurydice (1862) takes the couple on an arduous journey, striding past snakes and along a dizzying path on the mountainside. While he looks straight ahead, she seems to be struggling to keep up.
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829–1908), Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx (1878), oil on canvas, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope's Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx (1878) takes the couple further still, onto the bank of the River Styx, where Orpheus is summoning Charon the boatman to take them back across the water. He clutches her closely and still looks straight ahead, the couple bound together by the black sash of the Underworld.
George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), Orpheus and Eurydice (date not known), oil on canvas, 56 x 76 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
It's hard to know whether George Frederick Watts' undated painting of Orpheus and Eurydice shows Orpheus embracing the dead body of Eurydice immediately after she has been bitten by the snake, or (more probably) Orpheus clutching in vain at her spirit as it melts away back into the Underworld, after he looked back.
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898), Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice (c 1891), oil on canvas, 178 x 128 cm, Musée National Gustave-Moreau, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
The final painting in this series is Gustave Moreau's Orpheus at the Tomb of Eurydice (c 1891), showing the bard, his ghostly lyre slung from the dead treestump behind him, lamenting the loss of Eurydice after his failed attempt to bring her back from the Underworld. Moreau painted this dark and funereal work to mark his own inconsolable grief at the death of his partner, Alexandrine Dureux.
After the loss of Eurydice, Orpheus shunned the worship of all gods except for Apollo. Just before dawn one day he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion, not to worship that god, but to welcome Apollo. He there stumbled across a group of Thracian Maenads (followers of Dionysus, or Bacchantes) who were incensed at his refusal to worship their god, and tore him limb from limb in their fury.
Émile Lévy (1826–1890), Death of Orpheus (1866), oil on canvas, 189 x 118 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
Shown at the Salon in Paris in 1866, Émile Lévy's Death of Orpheus catches the moment before the Maenads inflict the first wound: Orpheus has just been knocked to the ground, and looks stunned. Two women kneel by his side, one clasping his neck, almost as if feeling for a carotid pulse, the other about to bring the vicious blade of her ceremonial sickle down to cleave his neck open.
Louis Bouquet (1885–1952), The Death of Orpheus (1925-39), oil on canvas, 98 × 131 cm, Private collection. Image by Jcstuccilli, via Wikimedia Commons.
Louis Bouquet's more recent Death of Orpheus (1925-39) transports the scene to a beach, where the naked Maenads are almost unarmed and just starting to tear the body of Orpheus with their bare hands and teeth.
According to Ovid, Orpheus' head and lyre were washed up on the shore of Lesbos, but in his painting of 1865 Gustave Moreau retains them in the waters of the river Hebrus.
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898), Orpheus (1865), oil on panel, 154 × 99.5 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
In Moreau's Orpheus, a sombrely-dressed Thracian woman holds Orpheus' lyre, on which rests his head, blanched in death, as if affixed to the lyre like the head of a hunting trophy. Her eyes are closed in reverie. The river Hebrus is shown in the background landscape to the right. The gentle and natural beauty of the Thracian woman, her ornate clothes, flowers, and the strange beauty of Orpheus' head on the lyre contrast with the harsh and barren landscape.
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898), Orpheus (detail) (1865), oil on panel, 154 × 99.5 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
Moreau has here avoided elaborate symbols and decoration, apart from two passages at the painting's corners: three figures, apparently shepherds, on the rocks at the upper left, and a pair of tortoises at the lower right. The figures refer to music, in keeping with Orpheus and his lyre, but the significance of the tortoises has been harder to explain.
Paul Ranson (1861–1909), Two Girls Next to the Head of Orpheus (c 1894), oil on canvas, 55 x 32.4 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.
Paul Ranson's Two Girls Next to the Head of Orpheus from about 1894 may well refer to Gustave Moreau's painting.
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus (1900), oil on canvas, 99 × 149 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
John William Waterhouse uses his 1900 depiction of this scene, in Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus, to celebrate honesty in art, a theme dear to Waterhouse throughout his career. He shows two young women discovering the severed head and lyre of Orpheus.
At least Orpheus had been finally re-united with Eurydice.
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