Andromeda and Perseus: myths of ancient Greece. "Perseus and Andromeda" - painting by Rubens

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

A minion of fate, a man generously endowed with everything that nature can give, that's who Rubens is. Peter Paul was multi-talented, had a beautiful appearance, a talent for grasping everything on the fly, a tenacious memory that allowed him to be one of the most educated people of his time. He spoke 6 languages, was well versed in music, poetry and other forms of art, and had the talent of a brilliant diplomat. In addition, he was extraordinarily lucky.

But the greatest fame in time and space for Rubens was provided by the genius of an unsurpassed artist.

Titanium

The sorcerer, "the king of artists, the artist of kings" - with what epithets the contemporaries did not reward this talented and surprisingly prolific genius of the Baroque era. The amazing master of painting Rubens, whose paintings adorn all the museums of the world, made the boring era of the reign of the Duke of Alba interesting and tempting.

He was great in all genres - portrait, historical and religious canvases, landscape, canvases on mythological subjects - he was subject to everything, he reached the heights in everything.

Amazing fertility

The artist left thousands of paintings signed by him to descendants, which indicates his capacity for work and the number of talented students. There are many paintings in all genres, including those written on famous stories from the "Myths and Legends" of Ancient Greece and Rome. He wrote Prometheus and the Amazons, tipsy Dionysus and Silenus, the stories of the abduction of Ganymede and the daughters of Leucippus, the Calydonian hunt and the head of Medusa and the celebration of the Roman goddess of love - Venus. The artist knew mythology very well. Rubens captured a lot of scenes, whose paintings are the best illustrations for the old tales of the Mediterranean.

The full-bloodedness of Rubens' heroes

True, the he althy heroes of the artist's paintings sometimes differ from the slender boys and girls depicted on ancient amphoras, and the concept of "beautiful" is inextricably linked with fatness. Here is the son of King Troy Ganymede, known for his extraordinary beauty, because of which Zeus, in the form of an eagle, kidnapped him and made him his cupbearer in order to have the fairy prince in front of his eyes all the time, on the canvas of Rubens looks more like a fat overgrowth, frightened to blue. The great Fleming, as a rule, has several works devoted to one subject. On one of them, the legendary son of Troy is not bad at all, but the eagle on all canvases is simplygreat. So the beauty of Perseus in the picture is somewhat peculiar. But this, of course, is a personal opinion. Obviously, the last thing Rubens wanted to paint was "pretty".

One of the most famous ancient Greek heroes

The painting "Andromeda and Perseus" is a masterpiece of world painting. Her storyline is very popular. Perseus, who killed the Gorgon Medusa, the most terrible and all-powerful of the three snake-haired daughters of the two sea deities Forky and Keto, is known even to people far from mythology. The ability of the Gorgon killed by the hero to turn into stone all living things, without exaggeration, is familiar to everyone. We are talking about her because right in the center of the picture, the severed head of a monster is carefully written out, attached to the surface of the mirror shield, presented to the hero by Athena Pallas for the implementation of this particular feat - the murder of Medusa. In general, the Olympic gods very well equipped the great son of Danae, who gave birth to him from Zeus. The plot about the birth of the hero is also well known. The king of Argos Acrisius, having learned that he would die at the hands of his grandson, hid his daughter Danae in a dungeon. But you can’t hide from the thunderer - he leaked to his beloved in the form of a golden rain.

All over the world

So, on the canvas "Andromeda and Perseus" all the armor - gifts of the gods - is very scrupulously depicted. True, the data differs, who gave what specifically, but the main version is as follows. Hades gave him the cap of invisibility. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, presented his winged sandals and showed the hero the way. The god of fire - the blacksmith Hephaestus - gave a sharp curved sword, since this is the only toolcould cut through the skin of Medusa, all covered with scales. The painting also depicts Pegasus, born from the body of the slain Gorgon Medusa. According to the plot of the myth, Perseus freed Andromeda without the help of a winged horse. But the artist, as it were, characterizes the great hero, presenting the viewer with evidence of his great deeds.

I must say that the myth of "Perseus and Andromeda" is very popular with writers, poets and artists, but it is Rubens' painting that immediately comes to mind at the mention of this couple.

The essence of the story

The plot of the picture is as follows. The great hero of Greece, the founder of Mycenae, the future center of Greek civilization, flew over the sea and saw a beautiful girl chained to a rock, with an expression of horror on her face. Going down, Perseus learned that Andromeda, and it was she, the daughter of the arrogant Ethiopian queen Cassiopeia and King Kefei, was ordered to be sacrificed to a sea monster sent by Poseidon in order to punish the girl’s mother for her long tongue. Cassiopeia was very proud of her daughter's beauty and claimed that she overshadowed the Nereids, the children of the sea god Nereus. The queen forgot that the Olympians are vindictive and can not stand the slightest competition. A terrible giant fish began to regularly devastate the country. The oracle said that the monster should be given to Andromeda, and the troubles would stop.

Son of Zeus to the rescue

But Perseus decided otherwise, he cut the fetters with the Hephaestus sword and sent the girl ashore, after asking the beauty's parents who were standing right there if they would give Andromedato him as a wife if the monster is killed. Having received consent, he rushed towards fate. The battle was terrible, the winged sandals were wet, the sword did not help, but the head of Medusa rescued Perseus. He showed it to the fish, and it petrified, turning into a coastal rock. The hero returned to the shore to his betrothed. Andromeda and Perseus lived happily ever after. She bore him seven children: the beautiful Gorgofon and 6 sons, the eldest of whom the Persian became the ancestor of the Persian people, and the youngest Electryon the father of Alcmene, the mother of Hercules. That is, the greatest hero of ancient Greece is Perseus's great-grandson. There is no need to talk about the role of Zeus in this whole story - he was the father of both Perseus and Hercules.

And now, beautiful girl, I want to marry you…

The description of Rubens' painting can begin by pointing out the exact moment of this touching story - the winner returns to the embarrassed and happy lover who just so happily escaped death. The picture has everything - both the solemnity of the moment (the goddess of victory, Nika, puts his helmet on the hero), and the joy of meeting lovers over the head of a defeated monster. Cheerful angels symbolize the joy and gratitude of all the Ethiopian people liberated from adversity, who, according to legend, poured out to the seashore in a noisy crowd. One can talk endlessly about the artist's palette, which shocks the audience of the 21st century, just like its contemporaries. Hundreds of books have been written about his skill and perfection with the brush, about his methods of applying colors to the canvas, about the love of life that flows from his canvases.

The pinnacle of creativity

“Andromeda and Perseus” is a brilliant painting by the creator of the baroque school, an excitingly bright, life-affirming style of artistic expression. Only great creators, and there are not so many of them, become the founders of some direction in art. Peter Paul Rubens perfectly mastered the power of plastic imagination, the dynamism of forms and rhythms. In his works, the decorative beginning triumphed. All this together formed the basis of his work. In his work “Perseus and Andromeda”, Rubens showed that he had reached the heights that the three previous generations of masters of his homeland of Flanders aspired to, namely, the fusion of the great classical tradition of the masters of Ancient Greece and Rome, which was revived by the Renaissance, with the realism of the masters of the South Netherlands (Flemish) painting schools.

Realism is the basis of creativity

1577 –1640 - years of life of a brilliant artist. Rubens wrote his undisputed masterpiece "Perseus and Andromeda" in 1620-1621, that is, being a mature master, with his recognizable manner of writing at first sight. And the realism of the great Fleming made the Greek myth sound in a new way. He brought the heroes closer to life. And Perseus looks like a real man, able to protect his beloved without winged sandals, and Andromeda looks not like an Ethiopian dark-skinned princess, but like a Flemish girl - white-bodied, with a bright blush, with beautiful blond hair, which Rubens succeeded so well. About this manner of his, which one author called the “mystery of the valiers”, successfully solved by the master. This means that "Perseus and Andromeda" -a painting in which Peter Paul applied glazing. This is a technique that results in a deep iridescent color. This happens due to the application of translucent paints of the same tone to the main color scheme.

Beautiful colors

In this picture, the contrast of the metallic dark armor of the hero with the delicate naked body of the girl played a big role - she is defenseless, he can protect. This is how the moment of the meeting of the heroes on the canvas of Rubens "Perseus and Andromeda" is captured. The description of the painting can be completed with words about the free, confident manner of writing by the great artist and the beautiful rich palette of the canvas. Local contrasting spots scattered throughout the picture - burgundy, blue, brown - are combined into a common color flow. The light pink-pearl body of the beauty stands out and dominates in it. The poet John Richards owns such lines, inspired by this picture: "… and the dark shell of the son of Danae sets off the sweet-snowy body …". The best version of this immortal work is kept in the Hermitage.