Early Achilles

Georg Pencz
Thetis entrusting the young Achilles to Chiron
(Chiron here depicted as Satyr)
1543
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Hans von Marées
Chiron with young Achilles
ca. 1883
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Tommaso Piroli
Centaur Chiron teaching Music to Achilles
(series, Antiquities of Herculaneum)
1789
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
Chiron with young Achilles
ca. 1750-60
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Bertel Thorvaldsen (figures) and Joseph Anton Koch (landscape)
Chiron and Achilles
ca. 1810
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen after Bertel Thorvaldsen
Chiron and Achilles
ca. 1820
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Frans Francken the Younger
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
ca. 1625
oil on panel
Národní Galerie, Prague

Sébastien Le Clerc the Younger
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Noël Hallé
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
1763
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Jan de Bray
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
1664
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Jan Boeckhorst
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Giovanni Battista Dell'Era
Classical Frieze with Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
ca. 1790
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Vincenzo Camuccini
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
ca. 1795-1805
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giovanni Battista Castello (il Bergamasco)
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
before 1569
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture at Pergamon
Torso of Achilles
170-160 BC
(fragment from colossal group)
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Johann Gottfried Haid after Rembrandt
Achilles
1764
mezzotint
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

For us, who have lived with the heritage of Greek and post-Greek art throughout our lives, it may need a good deal of historical imagination to recapture the thrill and the shock which the first illusionistic images must have caused when shown on the stage or on the walls of Greek houses.  There is reason to believe that this did not happen before Plato's lifetime and that his outburst against the trickeries of painting was an outburst against "modern art." For it was only in Plato's period, toward the middle of the fourth century, that the Greek revolution was moving toward its climax, only then that the tricks of foreshortening were joined to those of modeling in light and shade to produce the possibility of a real trompe-l'oeil.  If we place the beginning of the revolution somewhere in the middle of the sixth century, when archaic art begins to stir to life, it took the Greeks some two hundred years, scarcely more than six generations, to arrive at that point.  How did they achieve, in this brief moment of time, what had been denied the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, and even the Minoans?  Surely only a change in the whole function of art can explain such a revolution.  It is well to remember here that Plato's attack is not directed against the visual arts only.  As a matter of fact the painter's tricks are used by him only as an illustration of a more decisive issue: the banishment of Homer from the ideal Republic.  The arts must go, we learn, because they blur the only distinction that mattered to Plato, that between truth and falsehood.  Not that Plato failed to enjoy them – there is no evidence of that.  But it is hard enough, he would have pleaded, to sort out scientific knowledge from myth, reality from appearance, without interposing a twilight realm which is neither the one nor the other.  

Now it is precisely the acknowledgement of such a twilight realm, of "dreams for those who are awake," which may constitute the decisive discovery of the Greek mind.  To the unsophisticated mind – which may well be a mind as yet uninfluenced by the ideas of the Sophists – a story is either true or false.  The recitals of mythical events and the chronicles of battles are received as accounts of actual happenings.  Even today the idea of "fiction" is not immediately accessible to everyone.  John Forsdyke has shown how reluctantly the Greeks admitted this newcomer into their midst, how even they feared the loss of face that goes with being duped by a liar.  

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960).

Carrying

Philipp Otto Runge
Portrait of Pauline Runge with her Son
1807
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pieter van Lint
St Christopher
ca. 1675
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Parmigianino
Woman carrying a Child
ca. 1524-27
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Jean-Baptiste Peytavin
Metabus fleeing with his daughter Camilla
(scene from the Aeneid)
1808
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry

Sebastiano Ricci
Centaur Nessus abducting Dejanira, with Hercules in distance
ca. 1700
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Francisco Toledo
Deer (Venados)
ca. 1975-85
color etching and aquatint
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Eugène Vail
Study for Pêcheurs de la Mer du Nord
ca. 1893
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Franz Théobald Horny
Study of an Italian Woman
before 1824
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Albrecht Altdorfer
Centaur carrying Spear and Cauldron of Fire
ca. 1515-25
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Lucas van Leyden
Children bearing Helmet and Standard
1527
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Francesco Giolfino
Head of John the Baptist supported by Cherubs
ca. 1500
lindenwood relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anthony van Dyck
Abraham leading Isaac to Sacrifice
before 1620
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Heinrich Aldegrever
Hercules carrying Pillars of Gaza
1550
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Jost Amman
Titan carrying Boulder
ca. 1565
drawing
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Franz Henseler
Weinstub Bozener Batzenhäusl
1910
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Max Slevogt
Parrot Seller
1901
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum, Hannover

Hades, inexorable and unbending, why hast thou robbed baby Callaeschron of life? In the house of Persephone the boy shall be her plaything, but at home he leaves bitter suffering.

Five daughters and five sons did Bio bear to Didymon, but she got no joy from one of either. Bio, herself so excellent and a mother of such fine babes, was not buried by her children, but by strange hands.  

Often on this her daughter's tomb did Cleina call on her dear short-lived child in wailing tones, summoning back the soul of Philaenis, who ere her wedding passed across the pale stream of Acheron.

Alas! Aristocrateia, thou art gone to deep Acheron, gone to rest before thy prime, before thy marriage; and naught but tears is left for thy mother, who reclining on thy tomb often bewails thee.

This is the dust of Timas, whom, dead before her marriage, the dark chamber of Persephone received. When she died, all her girl companions with newly sharpened steel shore their lovely locks. 

In the sea, Nereus, died Sodamus the Cretan who loved thy nets and was at home on these thy waters. He excelled all men in his skill as a fisher, but the sea in a storm makes no distinction between fishermen and others. 

Arcturus' rising is an ill season for sailors to sail at, and I, Aspasius, whose tomb thou passest, traveller, met my bitter fate by the blast of Boreas. My body, washed by the waters of the Aegean main, is lost at sea. Lamentable ever is the death of young men, but most mournful of all is the fate of travellers who perish in the sea. 

Thymodes too, on a time, weeping for his unexpected sorrow built this empty tomb for his son Lycus; for not even does he lie under foreign earth, but some Bithynian strand, some island of the Black Sea holds him. There he lies, without funeral, showing his bare bones on the inhospitable shore. 

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Centaurs (Wise & Kindly or Fierce & Lustful)

Pompeo Batoni
Thetis entrusting young Achilles to the Centaur Chiron
ca. 1759-61
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
The Centaur Chiron and young Achilles
ca. 1695-1705
oil on canvas (grisaille)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Filippo Tagliolini
The Centaur Chiron and his pupil Achilles
ca. 1785
porcelain
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Roman Empire
Centaur
2nd century AD
colored marbles
Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome

Hellenistic Greek Culture
Torso of Centaur
(The Gaddi Torso)
1st century BC
marble
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Guido Reni
Study for the Centaur Nessus
ca. 1620
drawing
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Anonymous Italian Artist
Centaur
17th century
bronze statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Étienne Delaune
Combat of Centaurs and Lapiths
ca. 1550-70
engraving
Art Institute of Chicago

Aimé-Jules Dalou
Torso of Centaur
ca. 1880
terracotta
Petit Palais
(Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris)

Aimé-Jules Dalou
Torso of Centaur
ca. 1880
bronze
Petit Palais
(Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris)

Gustave Moreau
The Centaur Nessus 
ca. 1872-73
drawing
(study for painting)
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Gustave Moreau
The Centaur Nessus abducting Dejanira
ca. 1872-73
drawing
(study for painting)
Morgan Library, New York

Joseph Chinard
Abduction of Dejanira by the Centaur Nessus
ca. 1780-90
terracotta
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Padovanino (Alessandro Varotari)
Abduction of Dejanira by the Centaur Nessus
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota

David Vinckboons
Nessus abducting Dejanira, with Hercules in pursuit
1612
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Charles Le Brun
Hercules slaying the Centaurs
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmund Dulac

Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood,
Even where horrible green parrots call and swing.
My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
I knew that horse-play, knew it for a murderous thing.
What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat,
And that alone; yet I, being driven half insane
Because of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheat
In the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grain
And after baked it slowly in an oven; but now
I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found
Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew

When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound. 

Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;
I have loved you better than my soul for all my words,
And there is none so fit to keep a watch and keep
Unwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds.

– W.B. Yeats (1928)

Satyrs and Centaurs

Jacopo Bellini
Cupid with Young Satyr on Pegasus
before 1470
drawing on vellum
Musée du Louvre

Piero di Cosimo
Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs (detail)
ca. 1500-1515
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Giulio Romano
Satyr playing Pipes
ca. 1527-28
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Bernardino Luini
St Anthony and the Centaur
before 1532
drawing
Musée du Louvre

School of Fontainebleau
Satyrs pursuing Nymphs turned into Trees
16th century
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to il Pordenone
(Giovanni Antonio Licinio)
Satyr and Satyress
before 1539
drawing
Musée du Louvre

il Pordenone
(Giovanni Antonio Licinio)
Youth resisting Satyr's Embrace
before 1539
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Girolamo da Santacroce
Banquet with Satyr Musicians
ca. 1545
oil on panel
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht

Michelangelo Buonarroti
Head of a Satyr
before 1564
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous Dutch Artist
Hercules overcoming Centaur
ca. 1600
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Bartolomeo Schedoni
Sleeping Nymph surprised by Satyrs
before 1615
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Jacob Jordaens
Satyr dining with Peasants
ca. 1635
drawing, with watercolor
Musée du Louvre

Carlo Maratti
Satyrs harvesting Grapes
ca. 1660
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Charles Le Brun
Centaur drawing Bow
ca. 1672-74
drawing
(study for cupola decoration)
Musée du Louvre

Charles Le Brun
Bacchus and Satyr
before 1690
drawing
(study for painting)
Musée du Louvre

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Punchinello abducted by Centaur
ca. 1800
drawing
Musée du Louvre

from Counting to Six Million

You burst into the room, fifth grade facts burning your tongue

like Moses' coal. 100 people die every minute, you tell me
as I turn down the TV; and then, gleefully: 50 since I've been

in this room, and now 75 and now . . . O my little census bureau,

my prince of darkness, my prophet of numbers, riddle me this:

how many grains of sand before you can call it a desert?

And where were you the day Kennedy was shot? CNN, interrupting,

asks. My grandmother clicks her tongue like she's chopping onions

in the old country. Poor boy, she says, pointing, 

And there's John-John again, waving that little flag, still saluting.

                               *                     *                   *

There are more people breathing this very moment, my son insists,

than have ever died. He's home from college, so I don't double-check. 

He's driven a long way to surprise me on my birthday. Are you sure

you can't stay, I ask, holding him close. He looks full of hope;

a woman I've never seen before at his side. Welcome home,

I tell my wife. She's just turned twenty-four. I'm childless,

fatherless. It's the day of the funeral; Nineteen years until 

the twin towers. Three thousand since Moses murdered

the overseer. But that's not what I'm thinking. One, two, three,

she says, guiding me inside.  . . . 

– Richard Michelson (2006)