Juno and Argus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Juno and Argus (Peter Paul Rubens)
Juno and Argus
Peter Paul Rubens , around 1610
Oil on canvas
249 × 296 cm
Wallraf-Richartz Museum

The painting Juno and Argus by Peter Paul Rubens (oil on canvas, 249 × 296 cm) dates from the early 17th century and shows a scene from Greek mythology . It is one of the most important exhibits in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud (inventory no .: WRM 1040 ) in Cologne .

description

You can see cute, fat putti with skin that shines in numerous shades of pink. This skin is in contrast to the pale skin color of a depicted decapitated person. Although the putti are playing with the feathers of the peacock and despite the colorful robes of the people depicted, the scene is cruel: the two women meticulously detach their eyes from the severed head with a kind of tweezers . In addition, behind the mythological story of the picture there is an art theoretical thought.

Picture theme

Juno , Jupiter's wife , crowned with a golden diadem and dressed in an intense red robe that shines in many shades of color, does this macabre work, actively supported by Iris , the personification of the rainbow . The hundred eyes of the slain, who was called Argus , are then inserted into the tail of her peacock by Juno.

In his Metamorphoses, the ancient poet Ovid passed on the story portrayed by Peter Paul Rubens (Ovid, Metamorphoses I, 721-724). Jupiter, who was never averse to cheating, was surprised by his wife Juno while meeting the beautiful Io . Just in time, the father of gods transforms his lover into a snow-white cow. She is beautiful as a cow too, and Juno has to praise her beauty. But then Juno asks for the animal as a gift. In order not to give himself away, Jupiter has no choice but to comply with her wish. The suspicious Juno, however, rightly fears that the cow could be stolen from her and finally hands it over to Argus' care. He had a hundred eyes around his head. Two of these took turns taking turns to rest, the rest took care and remained on watch , writes Ovid.

Jupiter is unbearable this situation. So he sends the chatty messenger of the gods Mercury to free Io. Mercury tells Argus long stories with many words and a calm voice and tries to defeat him with his flute playing (I, 684). And indeed, at some point all of Argus' eyes, overwhelmed by sleep, were closed . (...) Mercury draws his crooked sword and hits Argus - he nods in his sleep - a wound where the head connects to the neck.

In this picture, which was probably made around 1610, the goddesses are now busy setting up a monument to the dead Argus. Argus' eyes are said to live on on the peacock's feathers. The insertion of the eagle's eyes into the plumage of the peacock is very rare in art. As a rule, the artists chose the moment before the beheading. Rubens himself also depicted this moment of the killing of Argus in another painting that he created for the interior of a summer residence of the Spanish King Philip IV . The picture hangs today in the Prado in Madrid - it was made around 1636/38.

interpretation

The reasons why Peter Paul Rubens chose the rare scene in this picture is unclear. At the end of Ovid's text it says: The light that shone in so many eyes is out! Hundred eyes now covered one night! So the story also revolves around the subject of light and dark, about optics. If one pursues these thoughts further, it is noticeable that Rubens also includes "Iris" in the picture, which Ovid does not even appear in the Argus story. Iris is a messenger of the gods who is at the service of Juno. Iris, the Greek word for "rainbow", is symbolized in the picture by a rainbow as a connection between the heavenly and earthly spheres. The part of the human eye that surrounds the pupil is also called the “ iris ” or “iris”. So here too there is a relationship to optics.

A color chord begins with yellow / gold on the right of the picture on the carriage and on Juno's robe - the woman on the carriage will be another servant of Juno. Then it continues over the large area of ​​the intense red of Juno's robe and then leads to the blue dress of the iris. One encounters this chord - through supplemented mixed colors - in the rainbow.

“Blue, red, yellow” are the basic colors of the theory of colors found in the six books on the optics of the Antwerp Jesuit father Franciscus Aguilonius . Aguilon's book, printed in Antwerp, and Rubens' picture were made around the same time. How far Rubens and Aguilon knew each other is unknown, but it is certain that Rubens designed the cover picture for Aguilon's work. It is noticeable - and this also belongs to the field of optical perception - how brilliantly Rubens was able to depict the most varied of skin tones. Countless shades of color from pink to white form the rosy skin of the putti and the slightly whiter skin of the goddesses. But the muscular corpse of Argus appears already in a pale rigor . Rubens was just as brilliant at reproducing fabrics. The light seems to refract hundreds of times in the clothes. The innumerable shades of color, which were set virtuously - sometimes with thick brushstrokes - create the impression of a very heavy, solid silk. Rubens does not only theorize about optical effects, but he also implements them excellently in his painting.

Finally, further levels of meaning of the Argus myth were not concealed, which Rubens should at least resonate with. The Dutch art theorist Karel van Mander , who wrote a widely read interpretation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in 1604, interpreted Argus as the human mind attached to the (animal) Io. But the mind is put into a voluptuous sleep by Mercury and therefore became vulnerable. The story of Argus can also be found in the emblematics , that is, in collections of epistemic poems, each with small illustrations. There it says, for example: Nobody is so vigilant that a sweet flatterer cannot deceive him under the appearance of friendship.

literature

(Sorting: youngest on top)

  • Nico Van Hout, Reconsidering Rubens's Flesh Color , in: Boletin del Museo del Prado 19, 2001, p. 10
  • Götz Pochat and Brigitte Wagber, Art / History between historical reflection and aesthetic distance , Graz, 2000, p. 48, fig. 5, p. 49
  • Ekkehard Mai : Mythology in Pictures by Flemish Masters. In: Kölner Museums-Bulletin 2000/3, pp. 39–43, Fig. 7
  • Robert Floetemeyer, Delacroix 'Image of Man. Explorations against the background of the art of Rubens , Mainz 1998, pp. 142–144, Figure 40
  • Fiona Healy, Rubens and the Judgment of Paris. A question of choice , Brepols 1997, p. 75, fig. 98, p. 283
  • Werner Telesko , Friedrich Schlegel and the conception of art as a 'relic of the divine revelation'. A contribution to the problem history of early historicism , in: Kunstjahrbuch der Stadt Linz, 1996/97, pp. 18-20, Fig. 5
  • Otto von Simson, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) , Mainz 1996, pp. 137–138, Figure 53
  • Michel Blay, Les figures de l'arc-en-ciel , Paris 1995, illustration p. 85
  • E. de Jongh, Hoogmoed en pompeusheid in pauwestaarten en pauwetaarten , in: Kunstschrift 4, 1995, p. 31, color illus. 40
  • Hans Vlieghe and Ekkehard Mai (eds.), From Bruegel to Rubens. The golden century of Flemish painting , exhibition catalog Cologne 1992, p. 348, color illustration p. 349, cat-no. 44.5
  • Michael Jaffé, Catalogo completo Rubens , Milano 1989, with illustration, cat. No. 142
  • Ekkehard Mai, Flemish painting from 1550 to 1650, = Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne. Picture booklets for the collection, Vol. 1 , Cologne 1987, pp. 32–44, color illustration 25
  • Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne, From Stefan Lochner to Paul Cézanne. 120 masterpieces from the painting collection , Cologne, Milan 1986, p. 134, with color illustration
  • Horst Vey and Annamaria Kesting, catalog of the Dutch paintings from 1550 to 1800 in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and in the public ownership of the City of Cologne (with the exception of the Cologne City Museum) , ed. v. Gert van der Osten and Horst Keller, Cologne 1967, pp. 95f., Figure 135
  • HG Evers, Peter Paul Rubens , Munich 1942, pp. 116–121, Figure 61