RUBENS, STUDIO OF: ODYSSEUS AND NAUSICAA
The large painting that recently appeared in the 18th-century room is Landscape with Odysseus and Nausicaa (61.27).
The story is from Homer’s Odyssey. The shipwrecked Odysseus, having escaped the Cyclops and navigated through Scylla and Charybdis, reaches the shore of an unknown land. He falls asleep, weary and naked, and is awakened by Princess Nausicaa and her attendants, who have come to wash some clothes. Odysseus covers himself with leaves and approaches them, asking for food and shelter. Nausicaa speaks with him, though her maidens flee. In the painting, the cart holding laundry can be seen in the left foreground, Odysseus and the princess in middle foreground. The elaborate mountain villa of Nausicaa’s father, king of the Phaiakians, is in the middle ground and his capital city in the background. In the sky the warrior goddess Athena, protectress of Odysseus, confers with Zeus, king of the gods.
As the label points out, the Homeric legend provided the chance for Rubens to design a detailed landscape and add atmospheric effects. Since his work was in great demand by the 1620s, Rubens had a studio of many collaborators and students who worked on his designs. How much Rubens did on any one canvas varied, but replicas were most often painted by assistants. Rubens’s own smaller version of this painting is in the Pitti Palace, Florence, and a 1635 replica by Lucas van Uden is in the Bowes Museum in England. MAG’s painting may be by van Uden, who specialized in landscapes in Rubens’s studio.
No comments:
Post a Comment