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8/9/2019 The Golden Age... the First and Last Days of Mankind
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"The Golden Age... The First and Last Days of Mankind": Claude Lorrain and Classical Pastoral,with Special Emphasis on Themes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses"
Author(s): Claire PaceSource: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 23, No. 46 (2002), pp. 127-156Published by: IRSA s.c.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483702Accessed: 14/05/2009 19:16
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CLAIRE
PACE
"TheGolden
Age...
The
First
and
Last
Days
of Mankind":
Claude
Lorrain nd Classical
Pastoral,
with
Special Emphasis
on Themes
from
Ovid's
Metamorphoses*
Dostoievsky's
vision of Claude's Acis
and
Galatea
[Fig.
1],1
which he had seen
in
Dresden
in
1867,
represen-
ted
a
harmonious
but
ultimately
unattainable
Golden
Age,
which will eventually vanish. This response captures partof
the essential
spirit
of Claude's
rendering
of Ovidian
themes,
at least towards the end of
his
career.
In
the
words
of
Versilov,
in
The Raw
Youth,
Claude's
painting
depicts
"mankind's
paradise...
a wonderful dream..."2 The context
is that of the Golden
Age
in
a more
specific
sense,
as
it
was
described
by
classical
writers and
by 17th-century mytho-
graphers,
and the
painting provides
a central focus for
any
discussion of Claude's
rendering
of Ovidian
themes,
as
I hope to show.
Marcel
Roethlisberger
has stated
in
a seminal article
that "the
subjects
of Claude's
paintings...
are of fundamen-
tal
importance, they
are
in
fact the chief
key
to the full under-
standing
of his
landscapes."3
This
assumption
has
underlain
a
number
of
recent studies.4
It is in
this
context that
I
pro-
pose
to
explore
the
question
of Claude's
interpretation
of
subjects
from Ovid's
Metamorphoses,
in an
attempt
to
analyse
the
distinctive
qualities
of this
interpretation,
as
well
as to
suggest
some
possible
visual sources
for
Claude's
imagery.
I
Claude
and the
Pastoral Tradition
This
paper
is
divided into two
interconnected sections:
Iwish first to locate Claude's approachto Ovidinthe pastoral
and Arcadian
tradition,
and
especially
to note his
affinity
o
Sannazaro's Arcadia. The second section turns
specifically
to
a consideration of
Claude's Ovidian
subjects,
though
still
emphasizing
the
pastoral
connection.
Claude
was
contributing
to an
established tradition
of
illustrations
o
Ovid,
notably by
Titian
and Northernartists
in
Rome,
but his
interpretation
differed
in
many respects
from
that of other artists.5
I
believe that his
approach
to Ovid is
most profitably considered in the context of his pastoral
scenes,
which
are rooted
in
the
Arcadian
pastoral
tradition
going
back
in
literature o
Theocritus and
Vergil's eclogues,
and
popularised
in
the Renaissance
by
Sannazaro.6
In
the
visual arts
this
tradition s
epitomised
by
the
pastoral
scenes
of
Giorgione
and
Titian,
or the
woodcuts
of
Campagnola.7
It
may
therefore be worth
briefly summarizing
some of the
important
haracteristics of
this tradition.
Characteristically,
the
pastoral landscape
consists of
a
peaceful
rural
scene, envisaged
as a
place
or
refuge
and
solace,
composed
of certain
key
motifs. In
particular,
tree or
127
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CLAIRE ACE
1)
Claude
Lorrain,
((Coast Scene
with
Acis and
Galatea?>,
1657
(LV 141),
100
x
135
cm, Dresden,
Gemaldegalerie.
group
of trees
(a
sacred
grove),
to
provide
shade from the
midday
sun; water,
generally
a
pool
or
stream,
to offer refresh-
ment;
soft
green grass
on which a
shepherd
reclines and
flocks
graze.
For this is an
inhabited,
humanised
landscape-
though
the inhabitants
should be herdsmen or
shepherds,
not
engaged
in
physical
toil,
for
only
thus would
they
have the
leisure
(otium)
to
indulge
in
music-making (playing pipes
or
singing)
and
in
contemplation-often
about fulfilledor
unhap-
py
love.8 Thus the sense of ease
and freedom is an essential
attribute.
Such an innocent
and
simple
life led
in
this rural
locus amoenus
(delightful
place)
is often
presented
in
explicit
or
implicit
contrast to
the
supposedly
more stressful existence
of urban civilisation-whether
as a
refuge,
or
as a
morally
superior
alternative to urban existence. The harmonious
128
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"THE
GOLDEN
AGE...":
CLAUDE ND
CLASSICAL
ASTORAL
atmosphere
may,
however,
be disturbed
by
a reminder
of
the
transience of
happiness,
and of
human
mortality epitomised
by the tomb of a shepherd), introducingan elegiac, as well as
an
idyllic
mood.
In
some
cases,
the inclusion of
shrines
or
architecture
provides
a
reminderof the
outside
world,
or of
the
deity
to whom the
sacred
spot
is devoted.
Such
a
landscape
finds its
earliest
literary
expression
in
the Greek
bucolic
poets,
and
in
the
Idylls
of the
Hellenistic
writer
Theocritus,
originally
rom
Syracuse
in
Sicily,
described
as
"the founder
of
pastoral
poetry"
and
writing
in
Greek.9 In
particular,
dyll
1,
and
Idylls
3 to
7,
and
11
have been
charac-
terised as bucolic, as concerned with the characteristic
themes of
the
genre,
notably
that of the
lovesick
shepherd
or
herdsman,
resting
and
playing
music
(sometimes
in
a
contest
with
another
shepherd),
and
singing
of his
love.
Theocritus
also
introduces the more
elegiac
theme
of the
presence
of
death;
in
his
Idylls
1
and
7,
a
group
of
shepherds
lament
the
death
of their
companion Daphnis,
and
the
natural world
shares their
grief-another
recurrent
topos
of
pastoral.10
Theocrituswas intouch with
early
rituals
concerning
the
death
of a shepherd king, and their close connections with the
theme of
nature's death
and renewal: the
very
essence of
metamorphosis.11
Segal
has
emphasized
the
"tension
between
realism
and
artificiality..."
hat is
characteristic of
Theocritus'
poetry:
as well
as the
evocation of
the
traveller
reclining
"under
a
shady
beech tree
when the
sun's
heat
parches",
there
may
be
also a
"conventional and
generic"
treatment of elements of the
setting.
There are
also
reminis-
cences of the
actual Sicilian
landscape,
with
references
to
pines, wildolive trees, the sea and the mountains.12
In
Vergil's
more
complex
bucolic
poems,
the
Eclogues-
the
prime
source of
the
pastoral
literary
radition
n
Europe-
there is a
more
varied
landscape;
in
Eclogue
1,
a
well-tended
farm,
seen
through
the
eyes
of an
exile;
in
Eclogue
2,
also
a
farm,
seen
by
a farm
slave;
Eclogue
3
presents
a
ruralcoun-
tryside,
with
shrines and
vineyards;
the
enigmatic
evocation of
a
new
Golden
Age
in
Eclogue
4
has a
context of
forest-clad
wilderness-the
Golden
Age,
it
is
suggested,
will
bring
about
a transformation f Rome into a farmwhere the earth is spon-
taneously productive.
Such a
variety
reflects
a
modification
n
mood and
treatment
in
the
sequence
of
poems,
concerned
with
the
shifting relationship
between
man and
nature.13In
Vergil'spoems,
we are
conscious of
the
fragility
of the
tranquil
rural
dyll;
we
are made
aware of the
existence of the distant
town,
and
also of the
exigencies
both of
history
and
of con-
temporary
existence. Death
too is
present,
with
the
tomb of
Daphnis
in
Eclogue
5 and the
elegiac
group
of
mourners sur-
rounding
it.14In
many
instances,
a
sense of
the actual Italian
landscape
underlies the
presentation
of
general
motifs.
Vergil'spoems
are not
alone
in
possessing
such
associations;
the
landscape
vignettes
in
Tibullus'
Elegies,
which are
remi-
niscent of contemporarysacral-idyllic
painting,
are also reso-
nant with
a
sense of
history,
evoking
the
pastoral
origins
of
Rome.15
The
concept
of
Arcadia-representing
an
imaginary
realm,
peopled
by herdsmen-poets,
remote from
worldly
cares,
devoted to
song
and the
pursuit
of
love-is
closely
linked to the
pastoral
landscape,
and
indeed is
indissolubly
associated with
Claude's
paintings.
However,
despite
the
later
associations of Arcadia with an idyllic, gentle landscape,
a locus
amoenus
providing
a
timeless
refuge,
the
landscape
of
the actual
Arcadia
(in
the
Peloponnese),
as
described
by
the
historian
Polybius,
is harsh and
rugged.
It
s
notable,
also,
that
Vergil
refers to
Arcadia,
or
Arcades,
in
only
four
passages
of
the
Eclogues,
and of
these
only
two include
specific
land-
scape
descriptions,
never
referring
o
the whole
landscape
as
"Arcadian".16
he
most
important
of
such
passages
is the
Arcadian
description
of
Eclogue
10,
where the
wild and
moun-
tainous landscape sympatheticallyreflects a lover's sorrow-
for the
landscape
of Arcadia
tself is
here,
ironically,
harsh
and
unwelcoming.
The
shepherd
Gallus
is a
victim of
"crudelis
amor",
who "willthink
of
wandering
through
forests which
are...wilder and
more
dangerous
than
those of
pastoral,
but
bear
a close
resemblance
to some
of the erotic
landscapes
of
the
Metamorphoses."17
For
example,
Eclogue
10,
line
52:
"...to
suffer in
the
woods
among/
The wild
beasts'
dens...";
or
line 58: "...the
sounding
rocks and
groves..."18
Vergil's
Arcadiahas, indeed, been described as a "variation pon the
classical tradition
that
pictured
Arcadia
as
primitive
wilder-
ness..."19 It
may
perhaps
be
seen as
representing
a
"hard"
s
opposed
to a "soft"
primitivism,
o use
Lovejoy
and
Boas'
ter-
minology.20
Arcadia
becomes
associated with
the
gentler,
more fertile
locus
amoenus
chiefly
in
post-classical
develop-
ments,
particularly
with
Sannazaro's more
eclectic,
pic-
turesque
and
enormously
influential
eponymous
romance,
which
probably provided
the
immediate
source of
imagery
for
many sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryartists.21However,
Sannazaro's
use of
Vergil's
Eclogues
is
highly
selective,
and
his
representation
of
Arcadiaas
a vision
of the
pastoral
world
is
based
almost
entirely
on an elaboration
of
the
outlines
adumbrated
in the
tenth
Eclogue.
For
instance,
his
romance
opens
thus:22
There lies
on the
summitof
Parthenius,
a not
inconsider-
able mountain
in
Arcadia,
a
pleasant
plateau...
filledwith
deep-green herbage...
There
are about
a dozen... trees of
such unusual
and
exceeding
beauty
that
any
who
saw
129
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CLAIRE ACE
2) Claude Lorrain,
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"THE
GOLDEN
AGE...":CLAUDE NDCLASSICALASTORAL
there
shortly
and
finding
living springs
so clear that
they
seemed of purest crystal,they began to refresh with the chill
water their beautiful
aces..."33
In
particular,
pecific
rivers or
springs
are associated
with
beautiful
and
peaceful
places,
notably
the Vale
of
Tempe,
in
Thessaly,
or the
river Anio at
Tivoli,
which
also had a celebrated
cascade,
much
praised by
travellers o
Italy.
Reminiscences
of
such
springs
or
cascades
occur
in
a number of Claude's
pastorals-sometimes
in the
context of a
recognisable,
if
idealised view
of
Tivoli;
or
exam-
ple,
Pastoral
Landscape
withthe
Temple
of the
Sibyl
at Tivoli
of
1639,
or
Pastoral
Landscape
of 1641.34
In the
setting
of
groves
and
shady pools, recalling
classi-
cal
pastoral-with
the
addition
of
buildings,
both
entire and
ruined
(the
latter
an
innovation of
Sannazaro's
Renaissance
pastoral)-certain underlying
themes recur
frequently, again
recalling
those of
Vergil
or Theocritus.
In
particular,
he bucol-
ic
landscape
is
pervaded by
the twin
themes
of love and
music. The musical contest between rival
shepherds
or herds-
man forms a recurrent
"framing"
evice
in
both Theocritus'
Idylls
and
Vergil'sEclogues,
and
it
comprises
the virtual aison
d'etre of
Sannazaro's
Arcadia: or
instance,
the
contest,
remi-
niscent
of
Vergil's
"arcades
ambos",
between
Logisto
and
Elpino, "shepherds
handsome of
person...both
of Arcadiaand
equally ready
to
sing..."35
Shepherds
or
herdsman
playing
an
instrument-either the
sampogna (bagpipes)
or the reed
pipe-are
familiar inhabitants
of
Claude's
pastorals
of the
1630s;
for
instance,
the
Pastoral
Landscape
of
1636
(LV11),
with
piping
herdsman,
or
the
Pastoral
Landscape
of c.
1637
(LV25),
with a
standing goatherd piping
and a seated
shep-
herdess
playing
a
pipe, accompanied by
a
shepherdess
strik-
ing
the tambourine.36Other
examples
are
LV
39,
of
1639,
with
a seated
figure playing
the
sampogna,
and LV
42,
with
seated
shepherd
playing
the
flute to a
listening
shepherdess.37
Music is also
present
as
an
accompaniment
to the rural
dance,
one
of
the favouritemotifs
in
Claude's
early
pastorals;
as
many
as
eight
or nine
paintings
show the
subject
of the
dance, repeated inthree etchings, and several drawings; rom
the
early
Landscape
with Peasant Dance
(St
Louis)
of
c.1630
to
the
Landscape
with
Country
Dance of
1637,
or LV
13
(1637),
made for
Pope
Urban
VIII, lover,
and
author,
of
bucolic
poet-
ry [Fig.
3].38
It
was of this last work
that
Blunt wrote that it
"might
be an illustration o the end of
Georgic
II",
while
Kitson
comments that the
subject
of
pairs
of dancers
competing
for
a
trophy,might
have been
suggested
by
a
traditional
ural
es-
tivity.39
his
might,
indeed,
be
a
reflection
of
such festivities as
the "festivo de' Pastori", n honour of ruraldeities, described
in
Sannazaro's romance.40
Another
recurrent theme is that
of
the
journey,
often at
evening, eitherof travellersmakingtheirway through a land-
scape,
of
shepherds journeying,
or of herdsmen
driving
cattle
along
a
path;
in the
Arcadia,
such
passages
occur,
for exam-
ple,
in Prosa
2,
describing
shepherds driving
heir
flocks,
or
in
Prosa
5,
with
a
journey
through
woods.41 Parallels
may
be
found
in Claude's
work;
for
instance,
Landscape
with
Shep-
herds of
1630-35,
with herdsman
driving
cattle
diagonally
into
the
picture
or Pastoral
Landscape (LV
18),
where
there
is
a similar sense
of
movement,
of herdsman
ushering
herds
through
the
landscape.42
LV
67,
of
1642,
shows a horseman
crossing
a
bridge
as
he
journeys
towards
Tivoli,
and herds-
man
driving
cattle to drinkat the ford
in
the
foreground.43
While Theocritus
presents
an
unchanging
scene,
with an
unending
noontide,
Vergil,
on the other
hand,
shows a con-
sciousness of the
powerful
associations of certain times of
day, especially
dawn
and dusk-the most
evocative and
poet-
ic moments.44Three of the
Eclogues
close
with
the
coming
of
evening, prompting
Panofsky's
evocative
term,
"vespertinal"
as
expressing
the
characteristic mood of the
genre.45
In
the
first
Eclogue
the
fall of
night interrupts
human
song
(lines
82-
83); evening
is also evoked
in
Eclogues
2,
6 and 9. Sannazaro
characteristicallyexpands
such
evocations,
for
example
his
Prosa
V: "At he
going
down
of the sun now
all
the west was
scattered
over
with
a thousand kinds of
clouds..."46
The
effects of
moonlight
are
particularly
ssociated
by
Sannazaro
with a
sacred
place,
with an
aura
of
divinity; .g.:
"A
place
truly
sacred
and
worthy
of
being
always
inhabited-thither
when
the
shining
moon with ullface shall
appear
to mortalsover the
entire
earth
I
shall lead
you..."47
The
idea
of
mutability
s also
implicitlyconveyed by
the
changing
seasons evoked
by Vergil:
n
the first
Eclogue,
that
of
autumn;
in
the
third and
seventh,
that
of
spring;
while the
second recalls late
summer,
with
scenes of
harvesting,
ploughing
and
pruning.48Although
the world of the
Eclogues
is an ideal
world, then,
it
is also imbued with
a sense of the
passing
of
time,
a
sense of
transience;
it
depicts
the
cycle
of
seasons, evoking particularlyhe promiseof spring,or the full-
ness of
summer.
Thus,
in
contrast
to
Theocritus'
timeless
world,
Vergil's
rural
poetry (especially
Eclogue
4)
is
charac-
terised
by
a sense of
time and of
history.
Claude's
landscapes,
also,
are
permeated
by
a
sense of
the
passing
of
time.49
Although
the
season of his
paintings
is
generally
that of
high
summer,
with
its heat and
lush
vegeta-
tion,
nevertheless
the
choice of
morning
or
evening,
with
their
associations of arrival or departure, pinpoints particular
moments.
(Moonlight occasionally
occurs,
with
melancholy
131
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CLAIRE ACE
3)
Claude
Lorrain,
,
637,
drawing
(LV
13),
194
x
259
mm, London,
British Museum.
associations,
as
in
the
drawing
of the Three
Heliads
Mourning
at the Tomb
of
Phaeton).50
The
frequentlyrecurring
hemes of
travellersor
figures
journeying hrough
the
landscape, already
noted,
also
convey
this
sense of the
passage
of time.
And,
as
we shall
suggest, many
of the
subjects
chosen
also,
in
them-
selves
imply
transience and
mutability.
Indeed,
it
might
be
suggested
that the
presence
of
ruins-whether of real or of
imaginarybuildings-in many of his paintings itself implies
a meditation on time's relentless
passage:
a constant theme
among
travellers
o Rome.51
The ruins
depicted
in
Claude's
paintings may
also be
seen
as
emblematic of Rome's former historical
greatness.
Vergil,
too,
is
particularly
reoccupied
with
Italian,
ndeed
specifical-
ly
Roman
history.
The
prophetic
fourth
Eclogue
is the
locus
classicus
for
the idea of a
golden age.52
Here the Roman and
Italian connotations, symbolised in the reference to the
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4)
Claude
Lorrain,
(Panand
Syrinx)),
.
1656,
drawing,
260
x
409
mm, Rotterdam,
Museum
Boymans-van Beuningen.
Cumaean
Sibyl, imply
a sense of
history
that is essential to
Vergil's
"Romanized
conception
of the
golden age".
The
Eclogues
are linked
in
this
respect
to a
passage
in the
eighth
book of the
Aeneid,
where the
poet
celebrates,
in
terms of
a
"golden
age",
a
post-primitive
ociety specifically
located
in
Latium
Italy).
The
poem
describes the
founding
of Rome on
the Palatine
Hill
by
the
shepherd-king
Evanderof Arcadia.53
Claude's later
paintings,
often made for
noble Roman
patrons,
convey
a
Vergilian
ense
of
the
early
history
of
Rome,
and this
particular
episode
is
given magnificent
embodiment
by
Claude
in
one of the "Altieri
Claudes",
the
Landing
of
Aeneas at
Pallanteum;
the
Trojan
prince
meets
with
King
Evander,
rulerof Arcadia(as recounted inAeneid
viii).
Aeneas
accompanies
Evander o the
Palatine,
where he is shown the
shrine of
Lycaean
Pan;
Pallanteumwas venerated
by
Roman
antiquarians
as a
primitive hepherd community
and the site
of the
worship
of
the
goddess
Pales,
sacred
to
shepherds
and
herdsmen.
The
theme of Roman rites is also treated
by
Tibullus,
who describes a sacrifice to
Pales,
goddess
of
shep-
herds,
thus
again emphasizing
Rome's
pastoral origins.54
Propertius'
ourth book of
Elegies similarly
alludes to a "lost"
primitive
Rome.55
In
Sannazaro's
romance,
the
description
of
rites
in
honour of the
gods
has an
important
place;
as,
for
instance,
in
the account of the festival of
Pales,
with
its accom-
panying
festivities.56The land
depicted
is thus "both
mythical
and
real",
n Fantazzi'swords. InClaude's
painting,
he
figures
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CLAIRE ACE
of the
shepherd
and his flock
in
the left
foreground
below the
hill,
emphasize
the
pastoral
origins
of the foundation of
Rome.57
Mortality,
oo,
is
present
in
the
Eclogues;
in
Eclogue
5 the
shepherds
mourn the death of
Daphnis (recalling
Theocritus'
first
Idyll).
The sense
of a
sympathetic
nature,
with trees and
rocks
joining
in
the
mourning,
is
powerful,
and
expanded
by
Sannazaro,
for
example
his second
Egloga,
or,
in
particular,
the
passage
in
Prosa
X,
describing
how "...the
pine
trees
round
about made answer
to him...and the
visiting
oaks,
for-
getful of their own wild nature,abandoned theirnative moun-
tains to hearken to him..."58While Claude
himself
relatively
rarely depicts
death
itself,
nevertheless
many
of his
paintings
carry
he
weight
of a sense
of
foreboding,
of imminent
ragedy,
that
elegiac quality
which has
been defined as an essential
element in Arcadia.Above
all,
the sense of a close
sympathy
between man and nature
is
implicit
n
Claude's
work.
In
classical
pastoral,
the
ruralscene is
peopled
not
only
by
shepherds,
but also
by
rural deities or semi-deities-
nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and especially Pan, deity of Arcadia,
whose
pipes
became
the traditional
ymbol
of the music-mak-
ing
Arcadian
shepherd.
A
drawing by
Claude
[Fig. 4]
shows
Pan
pursuing
the
nymph Syrinx,
whose transformation
to
reeds created
pan-pipes.59
Pan
plays
an
important
role
in
the
Arcadia,
where Sannazaro refers
to
him
as "the forest
deity"
("Iddio
del salvatico
paese");
in
Prosa
X,
he describes the tem-
ple,
statue,
and cave
of Pan.60The
cave,
"very
ancient and
roomy",
s situated in a sacred
grove,
"beneath an
overhang-
ing cliffamong fallenrock",withan altar"shaped by the rustic
hands of
shepherds".61
Pan's characteristic
instrument,
the
sampogna,
recalls the bucolic verse
of
Vergil;
n
Sannazaro's
verses,
a
"large
and beautiful
sampogna" hangs
from the
branch of
a
"lofty
and
spreading pine
tree"
in
front of
the
cave.62
A
dance of
the
Satyrs
who form the
entourage
of Pan is
also described
in
Sannazaro:
"Let auns and
Sylvans
leap.
Let
meadows and
running
waters
laugh...",
recalling
a
passage
from the first
book of the
Metamorphoses.63
Claude's
Landscape
with a
Dancing
Satyr
of
1641,
while not
specifical-
ly
Ovidian,
eems to
epitomise
this
passage [Fig. 5].
As Kitson
has
observed,
it
translates his
favourite theme of the rural
dance into Arcadian
and Bacchic terms.64
The
depiction
of
nymphs,
fauns and
satyrs-part
human,
part
divine
creatures-may
serve as a
point
of transition
between the
"pure" pastorals,
and the
"mythological pas-
torals"
(to
use Freedman's
term)
which
depict
scenes from the
Metamorphoses.65
The
underlying
heme of the
Metamorpho-
ses-that of transformationntoplants or flowers (most usual-
5)
Claude
Lorrain,
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"THE
GOLDENAGE...":
CLAUDE ND
CLASSICAL
ASTORAL
Sannazaro
then
describes
Apollo
as a
shepherd
guarding
the
herds of
Admetus,
which are
then
stolen
by Mercury-one
of Claude's favouritesubjects: "Andon one of the sides was
fairest
Apollo,
who,
leaning
on
a
wild-olive
staff,
was
guarding
the herds of Admetus on the bank of a river... he
was unaware
of clever
Mercury,
who
in
pastoral
dress... was
stealing away
his cows..."68
1I
Ovidian
Landscapes
in
Relation
to the Pastoral Tradition
Landscape
in
Ovid's
poem
Landscape
has an
important
place
in
Ovid's
poem:
his
settings
are
suggestive
and
impressionistic,
not concerned
with
the realistic
depiction
of
actual
scenery.
Imbued
with
reli-
gious
or
spiritualfeeling,
and
aptly
described as a
"paysage
mystique",
the
landscape
of
the
Metamorphoses
is
largely
symbolic,
with the
recurring
andscape
motifs
of the
pastoral
tradition: ecluded groves, quietwater,shade, soft grass, and
sometimes
rocks
or
a
cavern;
Segal
refers to "an almost
stereotypical sylvan scenery..."69
Ovid
was, indeed,
in
many ways
indebted
to
Theocritus
and
Vergil
or
his
settings;
according
to
Segal,
"Ovid's
groves,
shaded
place,
clear
fountains,
cool
streams,
grassy
meadows,
flowers, caves,
have close affinities
with
Theocritus' set-
tings".70
Yet,
although
the
landscape
of the
Metamorphoses
is
intimately
connected
withthe
pastoral
tradition,
t
subverts it.
The characteristic effect of Ovid's landscape arises from the
way
he uses
idyllic settings
for the erotic or violent actions he
describes,
thus
inverting
the usual connotations of
pastoral
landscape.
For
example,
whereas
the elements
of
wood and
water
in
the
pastoral
tradition
imply
refuge
and
solace,
in
Ovid's
poem they
often
become
a source of
danger,
as in the
story
of
Narcissus.
The
impact
of
the
tragic
events narrated s
paradoxically
enhanced
by
contrast
with the
apparently
serene
landscape settings.
Segal
has described
how
the
traditional lements
of
pas-
toral,
the locus
amoenus of a
pool
providing
refreshment
and
a
shady grove offering
shelter from
the
midday
heat,
are
in
Ovid's
poem
the
setting
for scenes
of
violence.71
According
to
Grimal,
Ovid's favourite
landscape
consists of rocks and
forests,
reminiscent of the "harsher"version
of
Arcadia
in
Eclogue
X.72
However,
as Wilkinson and others have
noted,
many descriptions
focus on
water,
which is
the
central
ele-
ment
also
in
bucolic
poetry.73
Shade, umbra,
which
in
Vergil
implies peace
and
leisure,
in Ovid's work often has sinister
qualities, providing
a
setting
for the deaths of
Narcissus,
or
Procris.74
Whereas
sympathy
between man and
nature
is an
essential strand in the
pastoral
tradition,
whereby
the sur-
roundingwoods and mountainsrespond, ina Vergilianway,to
the
emotions
of
the
protagonists,
this is subverted
by
Ovid's
ironical
stress
on
the
threat to
the
figures
at
the
mercy
of lust
or
aggression.75
Some
mention should be made of the
question
of analo-
gies
between the
landscape descriptions
in
Ovid's
poem
and
the
painters
of
Augustan
Rome,
when the
category
of land-
scape
mural
decoration,
and then
mythological landscape
paintingof the late second and thirdstyles, was developing.76
The
principal
motifs of the decorative
painters
of
Augustan
Rome-especially
rocks,
woods,
and water-are those which
also
figure
in
Ovid's
poem,
which
has some
affinities
with
both
scenographic
and
"pure" andscape
painting.
(The
inclusion
of
architectural
elements
in
"sacral-idyllic" ainting
is
signifi-
cant
for Claude's
approach,
if not
directly
relevant to the
Ovidian
ubjects).
Both
poet
and
painters
may
be
said to have
emphasized
the
expressive
qualities
of
landscape.
The con-
sensus is that Ovid may have been indebted to, or at least
aware
of,
contemporary painters;
like
their
work,
his
poem
presents
a
generalised concept
of
landscape,
rather than
a
depiction
of
an actual
scene.
The
motifs
of
woods,
caves
and water
are
presented
as conventional features united
in
a
symbolic
whole.
Claude's
interpretation
of Ovid
As I have suggested, Claude too adopts many of the tra-
ditional motifs of
pastoral
in his
rendering
of Ovidian hemes.
While a
general
debt to classical bucolic
poetry,
and to
Sannazaro,
is
evident
in
the
early
pastorals,
Ovid's
poem
formed his most
frequent
specific
literary
source
(in
both
paintings
and
drawings) throughout
his
long
career;
it
was
chiefly
in
his
final
years
that he focussed
on
subjects
from
Vergil's
Aeneid
(notably
with the
paintings
for
Altieri).77
Claude's interest
in
Ovid
is not in
itself
remarkable,
ince
subjects
from the
Metamorphoses
were
highlypopular
in
the
16th and
17th
centuries,
especially
with
Venetianartists and
with
Northern artists
working
in
Italy.78By
Claude's
day,
indeed,
the
painter
would
probably
often
rely
as much on
established artistic tradition as
upon
textual
minutiae,
and
a
knowledge
of
the
myth
would
generally
have
been
assumed
in
the viewer.
However,
we
know
that Claude
(if
not
always
faithful
o Ovid's own
text)
did consult the
translation
of
Ovid's
text
by
Giovanni
Anguarilla,
and that he
considered
it
suffi-
ciently important
o be noted in
an
inscription
to
one of
his
LiberVeritatis
drawings,
that
to LV
0.79
Indeed,
Claude
went
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CLAIRE ACE
so
far
as
to illustratean
episode
found in
Anguarilla's
ransla-
tion,
though
not in the
original
Ovidian
ext,
in
his
depiction
of
MercurypresentingApollowitha lyre, in LV192.80
There was a
long
tradition of "Ovides
moralises",
with
a
specifically
Christian
nterpretation
f
the Ovidian ables. As
late
as
the seventeenth
century,
when the
earlier
allegorical
or
topological interpretations
of
the moralized Ovids had lost
their
force,
something
of this tradition
persisted
in
a
general
sense. As a scholar of Ovid has
written,
"To
egard
a
classical
fable
as
a valid
truth,
necessarily open
to
interpretation
n dif-
ferent levels... is an attitude
of
mind which remained
with
six-
teenth-centurywritersand theirpubliclong afterthe moralized
Ovids themselves were
forgotten..."81
Illustrated
ditions
of Ovid's
text, also,
or series of
prints
based
on
the
Metamorphoses,
were well knownand circulat-
ed
widely during
the sixteenth
and seventeenth
centuries.82
To cite
Moss
again,
"The illustrated editions
of
Ovid show
a
variety
of
ways
of
reading
mythological
narrative... literal...
as visual
picture,
or a set of
general
intellectual
truths
in
coded
form;
as a moral
exemplum,
or...
as
material
for
alle-
gorical interpretationby similitudes,or as a repertoryof liter-
ary
reminiscences
of
associations."83
Among
the
most
influ-
ential
illustrations,
etting
a new artistic
standard,
were those
by
Bernard Salomon for the
Metamorphose
figuree
of
1557,
with
images
on
each
page
above Italian
verses. These
served
as models for a numberof later
illustrations,
notably
the
bold
and
striking engravings by Tempesta (1606), Crispijn
de
Passe's
elegant
illustrations
of
1602,
and also the
splendid
French edition
with
translation
by
Nicolas Renouard of
1619.84
However,
the
extent
to
which
painters
were
indebted
to
the
illustrations s
debatable;
Svetlana
Alpers
has
written
that
"the
pictorial
radition
of monumental
painting
was
often
completely separate
from the
illustratedOvids... illustrations
in the
printed
Ovids were
narrative
not
allegorical
in
intent...
85
Claude was
surely
aware of the
tradition
of
the illustrated
Ovids. For
example,
he
draws
on
its
conventions
in
certain
motifs or
poses
of
figures, particularly
for
more intimate
scenes: a notable
example
is
the
compositional arrangement
in
his Coast Scene with Acis and Galatea.86
In
particular,
he
series
of
etchings,
published
in
1641,
by
the Alsatian artist
J.W.
Baur,
in
which
landscape plays
a dominant
role,
often
seem to have an
affinity
with
Claude's
compositions.87
With
the illustrations
of
Salomon,
Tempesta,
and to some extent
Crispijn
de
Passe, however,
the chief
emphasis
is on the
fig-
ures,
while
with
Claude
it is
the combination
of
figures
and
landscape
that
conveys
the
meaning
of the
compositions.
In
general,
then,
it
seems more
likely
that
Claude drew
chiefly
on the pictorial tradition of Domenichino or of Northern
artists
in
Rome,
and
in
particular,
on his own
pastoral
com-
positions reflecting
the
poetry
of Sannazaro
(as
discussed
above).
Selection of
subjects
Ovidian
subjects
are most common in Claude's oeuvrein
the 1640s and
1650s,
but
may
be
found
throughout
his
career,
from
the
Judgement
of
Paris of 1633
(in
fact
from Ovid's
Heroides,
rather han the
Metamorphoses,
but often included
in
editions of the
latter)
o his
Parnassus
with
Minerva
Visiting
the Muses of 1680.88 In general one may trace a gradual
development
in
his
approach
from an
"allusiveand evocative"
(in
Kitson's
phrase)
to a more
careful and
specific
treatmentof
the
myth:
Kitson's allusion is
to Claude's treatement of the
subject
of
Mercury
and
Aglauros,
where the
artist has set the
scene
showing
Mercury
with Herse and
Aglauros
in an
open
landscape,
rather than as an
interior scene.
(However,
it is
worth
noting
that both
Ovid
and
Anguarilla
tate that
Mercury
descended to earth when he
caught sight
of
Herse
as
he flew
above Minerva's emple, while some of the illustratedOvids
show
Mercury
lying
above
the
figures
outside
Minerva's em-
ple,
and
Claude
may
have drawn on such
images.89)
The
sub-
jects
tend to
be
more
unusual later
in
his
career,
and the
artist
is
also
more
concerned to establish a closer
consonance
between
subject
and
setting (following
he
pattern
of his work
in
general).
When an unfamiliar
ubject
occurs
early
in
the
artist's
career,
one
may suspect
the interventionof the
patron
(or
at
least that the
artist was aware
of
the
patron's particular
interests).90
Some Ovidian
subjects
recur
frequently,
at different
stages
in
Claude's
oeuvre,
as
for instance
with
the
favourite
subject
of
Mercury
nd
Apollo;
others
rarely
or
only
once
(the
ApulianShepherd).
There is a
consistency
in
the kind of
sub-
ject
that
Claude
selects
from
the
Metamorphoses,
at
any
rate
from
the 1640s
onwards,
and
I
hope
that an
analysis
of
this
choice-and
equally
of the
subjects
which the
artist avoids-
may
be
illuminating.
have
suggested
that,
although
Claude
was
contributing
o
an
established traditionof illustrationsof
themes
from Ovid
by
other
artists,
his interest
lies
in
a
differ-
ent
facet
of
the
Metamorphoses
from that of
many
other
painters,
who often tended to dwell on
the
more
erotic or dra-
matic,
even
sensational,
aspects
of
the narrative.
Claude,
in
contrast,
is not
generally
concerned with violent or
overtly
erotic treatment
(such
as
forms
a
large part
of the
appeal
of
Titian'sversions
of,
for
example,
Danae),
and he also avoids
more
grandiose
or
epic
scenes,
for
instance
the
Fall
of
Phaeton or the Creation.91
n
accordance
with
the mood of
pastoral in general, his aim appears ratherto be to capture
136
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"THE
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ND
CLASSICALASTORAL
6)
Claude
Lorrain,
>,
1645-1647
(LV95),
120.5
x
158 cm.
By
kind
permission
of
the Earl of Leicester and the Trustees of the HolkhamEstate
(Photo: Photographic Survey,
CourtauldInstituteof
Art).
a moment
of transient
serenity,
which
may shortly
be dis-
turbed,
and to
prompt
meditation on the
event,
of which the
fatal
consequences
are
yet
to be revealed
(though
a
knowl-
edge of them may be assumed inthe spectator).This mood is
one inherent
in
"elegiac" pastoral.
Following Panofsky,
we
may suggest
that the
poignant
discrepancy
between
the
bucolic
setting
and the
tragic
event
may
be seen as
one
aspect
of the Arcadian
ethos.
Significantly,
then,
Claude
refrains from
depicting
the
actual
moment of
transformation,
and-with
one or two
notable
exceptions-tends
also to avoid the more brutal
transformations,
to beasts
or to stones.
In
general,
Claude
favours
what has been termed a
"principle
of
exclusion",
turning
to more
intimate,
pastoral episodes.92
One
of the rare
exceptions
to this
rule is the
Flaying
of
Marsyas,
of which
there are
two
versions,
LV
5 and
LV
95
[Fig.6].
In
these,
it is
the
pastoral
context
which dominates:
the
satyr Marsyas
has
dared to
challenge
Apollo
to a musical
contest,
in
the tradi-
tion of bucolic
verse,
recalling
the contest of Menalcas and
Damoetas
in
Vergil's Eclogue
3.93
(We
have seen
that the
theme
of music
in an
idyllic setting
forms
part
of the
pastoral
ideal.)
This is a scene
rarely
depicted
in
a
landscape setting;
it is
likely
that Domenichino's version of c. 1616-18, made for
7) Crispijn
de
Passe,
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8)
Claude
Lorrain,
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"THE
GOLDENAGE...":
CLAUDE NDCLASSICALASTORAL
10)
Claude
Lorrain,
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CLAIRE ACE
, 4rframw
-o
ur
dLde rarrocrir auo
t
;erar r
L
jarff
zrzm,
(=o~d?ud
eaerjri7i
rir
.ffaLlpo_TejiyP
13) Crispijn
de
Passe,
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GOLDENAGE...":CLAUDE
ND
CLASSICAL
ASTORAL
fr".
'.--
1
r
I
>K.
..
K
I-
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,.
- .
, 4
14)
Claude
Lorrain,
>,
1645,
drawing
(LV92),
261
x
191
mm, London,
British
Museum.
two
figures
"as almost a
pure pastoral,
with both the
gods
bare-
ly distinguishable
rom classical herdsmen."117
n
his late
paint-
ing
(c. 1678)
of a
rarely
depicted episode
from
his
myth,
LV
192
[Fig.
15],
Claude shows
Apollo receiving
the
gift
of
a
lyre
from
Mercury,
in
compensation
for stolen
herds;
here the artist
appears
to have relied
on
Anguarilla's
account,
since
the
episode
does not
occur
in
Ovid's
text-another instance of his
close adherenceto the translation
if
not to the classical
text).118
Claude's
painting
of
Mercury
and Battus
(LV
159,
Chats-
worth,1663), is possibly pendantto LV152, and depicts a relat-
15)
Claude
Lorrain,
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CLAIRE ACE
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.
o
. ,
.......
.
.
,
X
.
.
-
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IJnL?
fy?t
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Aatm
ca
A.c 2s:34-r,M,ato.
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r.u'
-
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wi
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a
16)
Claude
Lorrain,
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"THE
GOLDENAGE...":
CLAUDE
ND
CLASSICAL
ASTORAL
20)
Claude
Lorrain,
(The
Heliades at thete Tomb
of
Phaeton,
c.
1645,
drawing,
247 x
354
mm,
Rome,
Pallavicini-Rospigliosi
Collection.
(Photo:
Istituto Centrale
per
il
catalogo
e la
documentazione).
Mercury
was to
be seen
again,
who,
being
seated on a
large
rock,
was
sounding
a
shepherd's pipe
with
swelling
cheeks,
...watching
a white heifer
hat stood
nearby,
and
with
every
wile
he was
exerting
himself to deceive
the
many-eyed Argus..."121
Claude
depicts Argus watching
over lo
twice,
first
in
a
painting
or Camillo
Massimi,
of about
1645,
and
again
in LV
98 of about the same date.122Inthe version for Massimi,the
painter
shows lo's two
sisters,
mentioned
in
Ovid's
text,
who
add to her
pain
by failing
to
recognize
her.123
Two later works
depict
different moments
in
the
story:
LV
149 shows
Juno
Confiding
lo to the Care
of
Argus,
while its
pendant
shows
Mercury
piping
to the
giant Argus-the
latter,
in
particular,
recalling
he
piping
shepherds
of
pastoral.
De Passe's
engrav-
ing [Fig. 18] has a similarlypastoral quality.124
143
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21) Anonymous,
(
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24)
Claude
Lorrain,
(Landscape
with
Apulian
Shepherd,,,
c. 1657
(LV142), drawing,
197
x
260
mm, London,
British
Museum.
esoteric
subjects
at this
stage.)
Here
Ovid's
text is illustrated
with "considerable
precision".143
The artist
reinterprets
his
favourite motif of the rural
dance,
found
in
the
early
pastorals,
but now
with
a more
precise significance.
The
dancing figures
occur in illustratededitions of
Ovid,
for instance in
Crispijn
de
Passe's
engravings
for the 1602 edition
[Fig.25],
and those
in
Renouard's translation of 1619.
A
choral dance occurs
too
in
Ovid's
text,
where the
shepherd
frightens
a
group
of
nymphs
and as a
punishment
is turned into an
olive tree.144
This is one
of the
rare
examples
where Claude shows the
actual moment of
metamorphosis, perhaps
because he is
focussing
on the
dance,
with
all its
connotations,
rather
han
the fate of the
shepherd.
This
is
the
impression given by
one of
the preparatorydrawings, where the shepherd is still chiefly
a
spectator
to the
dancing figures [Fig.
26].145
n
the sixteenth
and seventeenth
centuries,
the dance was considered as
emblematic
of cosmic
harmony;
t is therefore of some
signifi-
cance that the rural dance was one
of
Claude's
favourite
motifs,
as
it
is his constant
concern to illustrate he harmonious
relationship
between
man and his natural
urroundings.146
A
marine
subject
from the
Metamorphoses
which
preoc-
cupied Claude throughouthis career was that of the Rape of
25) Crispijn
de
Passe,
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"THE
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AGE...":CLAUDE
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26)
Claude
Lorrain,
,,
c.
1657,
drawing,
170
x
240
mm, Haarlem,
Teyler
Museum.
27)
Claude
Lorrain,
>,
c.
1655
(LV136),
193
x
253
mm, London,
British Museum.
28)
Claude
Lorrain,
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CLAIRE
ACE
31)
Claude
Lorrain,
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"THE
GOLDEN
AGE...":CLAUDE
ND
CLASSICAL
ASTORAL
32)
Claude
Lorrain,
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ACE
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"THEGOLDEN
AGE...": CLAUDEAND
CLASSICALPASTORAL
tions and moral tone of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century
allegorisations
of those fables
(if
not Poussin's subtle
explo-
ration of the complex connotations of such allegorisations).
But
the
pastoral
and
elegiac
mood dominate
over
any
moral
interpretation:
it is
in
part
the
note of muted
regret
at
the
tran-
*
Part of
this
paper originated
n a
lecture
given
at the National
Gallery,
London,
on the
occasion
of
the
exhibition,
Claude:
the Poetic
Landscape, London, 1994; the catalogue by HumphreyWine has
been a
stimulus,
as
have
the lectures
and
writings
of
Helen
Langdon
on
Claude.
I
am
grateful
o Eleanor
Winsor
Leach for her
helpful
com-
ments.
Any
discussion
of this
subject
must
also be
indebted to
the
writings
of Marcel
Roethlisberger
and Michael
Kitson. Thanks
to
the
Department
of
History
of
Art,
Glasgow
University,
or financialassis-
tance
towards
photographic
costs.
The excellent
catalogue
by
J.-C.
Boyer
to
the
exhibition,
Claude
Lorrain
t
le
monde des
dieux
(Epinal,
2001),
which
appeared
after
this article
was
written,
discussed
many
of
Claude's
mythological
sujects.
The LiberVeritatis LV)was a book of drawingsmade by Claude after
his
own
compositions,
from
c.
1635,
originally
as a
record
against
forgery.
1
Coast
View
with
Acis and
Galatea,
LV
141,
Dresden,
Gemalde-
galerie.
2
Cf.
D.
Magarshak,
Dostoievsky,
London, 1962,
pp.
358
ff.:
"It
was
Lorrain's
picture
hat
left
its
greatest
mark
on
Dostoievsky's
writ-
ings...
the
unsuspecting
happiness
of
the lovers...
before
Poly-
phemus
descends
upon
them
and
kills Acis
became associated
in
his
mind
with the
Golden
Age
of 'the first
and
last
days
of mankind'...
[He]
used
[the passage] originally
n The
Devils,
then transferred
t to The
Raw Youthand
finally
came back
to
it
again
in his
philosophical
tale,
The Dreamof a RidiculousMan..."
3
M.
Roethlisberger,
"The
Subjects
of
Claude's
Paintings",
Gazette
des
Beaux-Arts,
LVII
1960),
pp.
209-24;
cf.
also
idem,
"Les
Dessins
de Claude
Lorrain
sujets
rares", bid.,
LIX
1962),
pp.
153-
64.
4
Cf. Diane
Russell,
Claude
Gellee
(exh.
cat.,
Washington
and
Paris,
1982-83)
and
esp. Humphrey
Wine,
Claude:
the
Poetic
Landscape (see
above).
5
See
pp.
7-8.
For
a
thoughtful
outline
of the
traditionof
depic-
tions
of
Ovidian
subjects,
cf.
Nigel
Llewellyn,
"Illustrating
vid",
n
C.
Martindale, d.,
Ovid
Renewed,
Cambridge,
1988,
pp.
151-276,
with
bibliography.
sience
of
happiness,
or the
apprehension
of imminent
tragedy,
pervading
Claude's
apparently
harmonious
landscapes
that
gives many of his later renderings of Ovidian subjects a pecu-
liar
poignancy,
and
which also links them with the
pastoral
tradition.
6
Cf.
Roethlisberger
(with
D.
Cecchi), L'Opera completa
di
Claude
Lorrain,Milan,
1975;
hereafter
MR-C,
p.
5: "Si deve
volgere
I'attenzionealla letteratura,n particolarealla poesia bucolica, che sin
dai
tempi
di Teocritici avera
data una variata
fioritura
di
opere,
per
comprendere
la fonte
d'ispirazione
del
paesaggio...
solo
Claude
seppe
rendere
chiaro
dal
punto
di vista
figurativo
quanto
erastato
pre-
cedemente
cantato nell'ambito
della
poesia...
la
sua
inclinazione
por-
tandolo
a ricreare
l mondo delle
Egloghe
e
Georgiche
virgiliane
ome
quello
della
poesia
di Ovidio..."
7
For the
pastoral
tradition,
especially
in
Venetian
painting
and
graphic
art,
cf. David
Rosand,
"Giorgione,
Venice
and the Pastoral
Ideal",
in
R.
Cafritz,
L.
Gowing
and
D.
Rosand,
Places
of
Delight,
Washington
and
London,1988,
pp.
20-81.
8
There s an extensive bodyof criticismon the pastoral radition
in
literature;
f.
inter
alia,
Renato
Poggioli,
The
Oaten
Flute:
Essays
on
Pastoral
Poetry
and the Pastoral
Idea,
Cambridge,
Mass., 1975;
T.
G.
Rosenmayer,
The Green Cabinet:
Theocritus
and
the
European
Pastoral
Lyric,
Berkeley,
1969.
9
Cf.
Charles
Segal, "Landscape
nto
Myth:
Theocritus'
Bucolic
Poetry",
n
Poetry
and
Myth
n Ancient
Pastoral,
Princeton,
NJ,
1981,
pp.
210-34.
10
Cf.
Idyll
I, 132-36;
Idyll
7, 72-77;
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
127.
11
Cf.
Idylls
1, 13-36;
7,
74-76;
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
222.
12
Cf.
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
213 and n.11.
13
Cf. EleanorWinsor
Leach,
Virgil'sEclogues:
the
Landscape
of
Experience,
Ithaca and
London,
1974,
passim;
eadem,
"Parthenian
Caverns:
Remapping
of an
Imaginative
Topography",
ournal
of the
History
of
Ideas,
XXXIX
1978),
pp.
539-60.
14
Eclogue
V,
esp.
lines 40-44.
15
Cf.
Leach,
"Sacral-ldyllic
Landscape
and
the
Poems
of
Tibullus'
irst
Book",
Latomus,
XXXIX
1980),
pp.
47-69.
16
Cf.
Leach,
"Parthenian
Caverns",
p.
55.
17
Cf.
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
74.
18
"...
in silvis inter
speleae
ferarum...";
"per rupes... lucosque
sonantis..."
The translation
of the
Eclogues
quoted
here is that
of
Guy
Lee,
for
Penguin
Classics,
Harmondsworth, 984,
p.
105,
line
57.
19 Cf.Leach, "ParthenianCaverns",p. 53.
151
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20
Cf.
A.
O.
Lovejoy
and
G. S.
Boas,
Primitivismand Related
Ideas
in
Antiquity, eing
Vol.
I
of
A
DocumentaryHistory
of
Primitivism
and
Related
Ideas, Baltimore,
1935;
reprinted
1965.
21
Jacopo Sannazaro,Arcadia,Venice, 1504;
references here
are
to the 1586 edition
in
Cambridge
UniversityLibrary.
ranslationsare
from
R.
Nash,
Jacopo
Sannazaro,
Arcadianand
Piscatorial
Eclogues,
Detroit,
1966. Helen
Langdongave
an
illuminating
ecture
on
Claude's
interestin
Sannazaro
at the National
Gallery,
London,
n
1994.
22
Sannazaro,Arcadia,
ed.
cit.,
p.
11-11v;
Nash,
ibid.,
p.
30-31.
23
Vergil,Eclogue
X,
line 42: "hic
gelidi
fontes,
hic
mollia
prata,
Lycori...";
r.
Lee, ibid.,
pp.
104-5.
24
Cf.
Nash, ibid.,
p.13;
Leach, ibid.,
p.
546.
25
Cf.
Leach, ibid.,
p.
550.
26
Eclogue
I,
line
1:
"Tityre,
u
patulae
recubans
sub
tegmine
fagi..."(tr.
Lee, ibid.,
p. 31)
27
Sannazaro,Arcadia,Prosa I;ed. cit.,
p.
12.; Nash, ibid.,
p.
31.
28
Sannazaro,
Arcadia,
Egloga
2;
ed.
cit.,
p.
20;
Nash, ibid.,
p.
36:
"...
I'ombra
de
gli
ameni
Faggi/
Pasciute
pecorelle
homai
che'l
Sole/
Su'l
mezzo
giorno
indrizza caldi
reggi..."
29
LV
5,
Pastoral
Landscape (London,
National
Gallery,
.
1636),
M.
Roethlisberger,
Claude Lorrain: he
Painting,
London
1961,
(here-
after
MRP),
ig.
54;
another version is
in
Rome
(Pallavicini
oll., 1637,
MRP
ig.
55);
Pastoral
Landscape
(Washington,
National
Gallery
of
Art,
1633-35;
MR-Cno.
30).
30
LV39
(private
coll.,
c.
1639;
MRP
fig.
99);
LV
155,
Pastoral
Landscape (Duke
of
Rutland,1661,
MRP
ig.
254, MR-C,
no.
225).
31
Eclogue I,lines 51-53:"Fortunateenex, hic inter luminanota/
Et
fontis sacros
frigus captabis opacum...";
tr.
Lee, ibid.,
p.
33.
32
Theocritus,
Idyll
1,
lines 68 and 118.
33
Sannazaro,
ibid.,
Prosa
IV;
d.
cit.,
p.
32; Nash,
ibid.,
p.
50.
34
Pastoral
Landscape
with the
Temple
of
the
Sibyl
at Tivoli
(Melbourne,
National
Gallery
of
Victoria,
1630-35;
MR-C
no.39);
LV
2,
Pastoral
Landscape (Duke
of
Wellington,1641);
MRP
igs.
133,
131b.
Other
examples
include
Wooded
Landscape
with Stream
(p.c.,
1630;
MR-Cno.
18); Landscape
with
Shepherds
(p.c.
1636;
MR-Cno.
57).
35
Sannazaro,
Arcadia,
Prosa
IV,
p.
32v; Nash,
ibid.,
p.
51:
"pas-
toribelli... ambiduo di Arcadia&
egualmente
a cantare..."
The source
is Vergil'sEclogue VII,1.4.
36
LV
11
(two
versions,
c. 1636:
formerly
Earl
of
Haddington,
MRP
fig.
44,
and
copy,
MRP
fig.
47;
MR-C no.
63);
LV
25
(painting
unknown,
1637,
MRP
fig.
71,
MR-C
no.
96).
37
For
LV
39,
see
n.
30
above;
MRP
fig.
99;
MR-C
no.
102?);
Pastoral
Landscape,
LV 42
(New
York,
Metropolitan
Museum,
1639),
MRP
fig.
108.
38
Landscape
with
Country
Dance
(St
Louis,
Missouri,
c.
1630;
MR-Cno.
12);
Landscape
with
Country
Dance
(Florence,
Uffizi,1637;
MR-C no.
65);
Landscape
with
Country
Dance,
LV
13
(Earl
of
Yarborough,
637;
MRP
ig.
50,
MR-C
no.
67).
Another
country
dance
is depicted in LV53 (Dukeof Bedford,WoburnAbbey,c. 1640; MRP
fig. 122).
39
Anthony
Blunt,
Art and
Architecture
in
France
(3rd
ed.,
Harmondsworth,
970),
p.
181;
M.
Kitson,
Claude
Lorrain:
he Liber
Veritatis,
London
1978,
p.
59. The
passage
to which Blunt
refers
is
pre-
sumably
Georgic
II,
ines 527-531
(describing
the 'Rustick
pomp',
in
Dryden's
version).
40
Sannazaro,
bid.,
ed.
cit.,
Prosa
III,
p.
24v:"... tutti ieti
con dilet-
tevoli
giochi,
intornoa
gli
inghirlandati
uoi....(etc.)";
Nash, ibid.,
p.
42.
41
Sannazaro,
ibid.,
ed.
cit.,
Prosa
II,
p.19:
"...
di
passo
in
passo
guidando
con
I'usata
verga
i
vagabondi
greggi
che
si imboscav-
ano...";
and Prosa
V,
pp.
38v:
"...
[i
greggi]
li
quali
di
passo
in
passo
con le lorocampane per le tacite selve... (etc.)",Nash, ibid.,p. 57.
42
Landscape
with
Shepherds (France, p.c.,
1630-35;
MR-C
no.
32);
Pastoral
Landscape,
LV18
(Duke
of
Portland,1637;
MRP
ig.
58,
MR-Cno.
73).
43
Landscape
with
Imaginary
View
from
Tivoli
(London, p.c.,
1642;
MRP
ig.
138,
MR-Cno.
131).
44
Cf.
Leach,
Vergil'sEclogues, esp. pp.
76-77.
45
Cf.
Erwin
Panofsky,
"Poussin and the
Elegiac
Tradition,"
n:
Meaning
n
the Visual
Arts,
Princeton
1955,
p.
300.
46
"Era
gia per
lo tramontaredel
sole...":
Sannazaro, ibid.,
pp.
37-37v; Nash, ibid.,
p.
55.
47
"...
luogo
veramente sacro...
Hor
quivi
come
la candida luna
con
ritonda accia
apparira
a'mortali
opra
la universa
erra,
i
menero
io..."; ibid.,
p.
82v; Nash, ibid.,
p.
106.
48
Leach,
Vergil'sEclogues, p.
78.
49
Cf.
Roethlisberger,
"The
Dimensionof time inthe
Art
of
Claude
Lorrain", rtibuset Historiae,20
(1989),
pp.
73-92; he concludes that
"the
representation
f
the
passage
of
time can be taken
as the leitmotif
of
his
art..."
50
M.
Roethlisberger,
Claude Lorrain:
he
Drawings,
Berkeley
and
Los
Angeles,
1968
(hereafter
MRD),
no.
547,
pp.
221-22;
cf.
p.
10.
51
For
travellers'
responses
to
the ruins of
Rome,
cf.
esp.
Margaret
McGowan,
"Impaired
vision: the
experience
of Rome
in
Renaissance
France",
Renaissance
Studies,
8,
no.
3,1994,
pp.
244-55.
52
On
the
concept
of
a "Golden
Age",
and
its
links with
that of
Arcadia,
cf. Charles
Fantazzi,
"Golden
Age
in
Arcadia",
Latomus,
XXIII
(1974), pp.
280-315.
53
Cf. Vergil,Aeneid, VIII, ines 86-126. We are reminded that
Romulus himself
was,
according
to
tradition,
a
shepherd.
54
Cf.
Leach,
"Sacral-ldyllicLandscape
Painting
and
the Poems
of
Tibullus'First
Book",Latomus,
XXXIX
1980), pp.
47-69;
idem,
The
Rhetoricof
Space,
Princeton,1988,
pp.
198-200.
55
Cf.
Elaine
Fantham,
"Images
of the
City:
Propertius'
New-old
Rome",
in T.
Habinek,
ed.,
The Roman
Cultural
Revolution,
Cambridge,
1997,
pp.
122-35.
56
Sannazaro,Arcadia,
ed.
cit.,
p.
24
verso.
57
LV
185,
Landing
of
Aeneas at Pallanteum
(1675,
Lord
Fairhaven,
Anglesey Abbey);
MRP
fig.
301. Cf.
Leach,
Vergil's
Eclogues, pp. 57-58; Kitson, Liber Veritatis, pp. 168-69; Helen
Langdon,
"The
Imaginative Geographies
of
Claude
Lorrain",
n
C.
Chard and H.
Langdon (eds.),
Transports,
New
Haven
and
London,
1996,
pp.
151-78.
58
"... i
circostanti
Pini
movendo
i
loro
sommita,
gli respondeano,
e
le forestiere
Querce dimenticate
della
propria
elvatichezza abban-
donavano
i
nativimonti
per
udirlo..."; bid.,
p.
81; Nash,
ibid.,
p.
104.
59
MRD,
o.
801,
p.
301
(Museum
Boymans-van
Beuningen,1656).
60
Sannazaro,
ibid.,
"Argomento"
o Prosa
X,
p.
78v.; Nash, ibid.,
p.
103.
61
"...
il
reverendo & sacro
bosco... trovammosotto una
pen-
dente ripa, fra ruinatisassi una spelonca vecchissima & grande...
dentro di
quella
del
medesimo sasso
un bello
altare,
formato da rus-
tiche
mani de
pastori....";
ibid.,
p.
79v.; Nash, ibid.,
p.
102.
62
"Dinanzialla
spelonca porgeva
ombra
un
pino
altissimo
&
spatioso
ad
un
ramo
del
quale
una
grande
e
bella
sampogna pende-
va...";
ibid.,
p.
79v
(Prosa X).
63
"saltan
Fauni
&
Silvani/
Ridan li
prati,
& le correnti
linse...";
ibid.,
p.
29v
(Ecloga III);
Nash,
ibid.
p.
47; Ovid,
Metamorphoses,
I,
193-94:
"..sunt,
rustica
numina,
Nymphae/
Faunique,
Satyrique,
&
monticolae silvani..."
64
LV
55,
Landscape
with a
Dancing Satyr
and
Other
Figures
(Toledo,Ohio,
Museumof
Art,
c.
1641;
MRP
ig.
123, MR-C,
no.
119),
Kitson,LiberVeritatis, . 87.
152
8/9/2019 The Golden Age... the First and Last Days of Mankind
28/31
"THE
GOLDEN AGE...":
CLAUDEAND
CLASSICAL
PASTORAL
65
Luba
Freedman,
The
Classical
Pastoral
n
the Visual
Arts,
New
York,
1989.
66
"Finalmente
quanti
fanciulli &
magnanimi
Re
furono nel
prio
tempo pianti,
da
gli
antichi
pastori,
utti
se
vedevano
quivi
ransformati
fiori...";
Sannazaro, ibid.,
p.
86
(Prosa
X);
Nash, ibid.,
p.
111.
67
"...vedemmo
in
su
la
porta dipinte
alcune
Selve,
& colli
bellis-
simi,
&
copiosi
d'alberi
ronduti,
& di
mille
varieta
di
fiori,
ra
quali
se
vedeano
molti
armenti che
andevan
pascendo,
&
spatiandosi per
li
verdi
prati...
De
pastori
alcuni
mungievano...
altri
sonavano
sam-
pogne...
Ma
quel
che
piu
intentamente
mi
piacque
di
mirare,
erano
certe
Ninfe
gnude...."
Sannazaro, bid.,
ed.
cit..,
pp.
24v-25
(Prosa ill);
Nash, ibid.,
pp.
43-44;
cf.
Langdon,"Imaginative
Geographies",
p.
157.
68
Sannazaro,
ibid.,
p.
25v:
"Et n
un
de' lati
vi
era
Apollo
biondis-
simo,
il
quale
appogiato
ad
un bastone di
selvatica
Oliva
guardava
gli
armenti di
Admeto alla riva
d'un
fiume...
non se
avedea del
sagace
Mercurio he in habitopastorale... gli furava e vacche..." The subject
occurs in
Metamorphoses,
I,
680
ff.
69
The
phrase
"paysage
mystique"
is
that
of
Pierre
Grimal,
n
"Les
Metamorphoses
d'Ovide et
la
Peinture
paysagiste
de
I'epoque
d'Auguste",
Revue
des
etudes
romaines
(1938),
pp.
145-61;
cf.
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
45: "A
secluded
grove,
quiet
water,
shade,
coolness,
soft
grass,
sometimes
rocks or a
cavern..."
70
Segal,
ibid.,
p.
74;
Theocritus,
Idylls
1, 1-3, 7-8,
105-7;
5,
31-
34,
45ff.;
7, 7-0,
135
ff;
22,
37-43.
71
Cf.
C.
Segal,
"Landscape
n
Ovid's
Metamorphoses",
Hermes,
Einzelshriften
3-25,
1969-70,
pp.
1-7.
72
Cf. Grimal, ibid., also L.P. Wilkinson,Ovid Recalled, Cam-
bridge,
1955,
pp.
180-81.
73
Cf.
Wilkinson,
ibid.,
esp.
pp.
180-81:
"There
are
a
dozen
extended
descriptions
of natural
cenery
in
the
piece,
and
practically
all of them
centre
round
water,
cool,
calm
and
shad