Jupiter and Io

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Jupiter and Io (Antonio da Correggio)
Jupiter and Io
Antonio da Correggio , 1531 or 1532
Oil on canvas
163.5 × 74 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna

Jupiter and Io is a Renaissance style painting by Antonio da Correggio from the first half of the 16th century . It shows the moment when Io was seduced by the god Jupiter and is considered to be one of Correggio's masterpieces. Today it is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna .

Client, origin and whereabouts

The picture was created as part of a commissioned work in a series of four erotic paintings that deal with Jupiter's love adventures. The painting was commissioned by Duke Federico II of Mantua . In addition to this painting, Jupiter and Danaë , today in the Galleria Borghese in Rome , Leda with the swan , today in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin , and the Abduction of Ganymede , this painting is also in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The cycle as a whole is seen as a high point of erotic painting of the Renaissance, the painting itself is considered the most erotic of its time. The work was created around 1530, the painting itself in 1531 or 1532. Duke Federico gave the picture to Emperor Charles V on the occasion of his stay in Mantua. That is why it came to Vienna, was still in other ownership in the 17th century and was finally bought back by Emperor Rudolf II . After the death of Rudolf II it is still in the Kunsthistorisches Museum

Motif and representation

The painting depicts the moment of involuntary sexual intercourse on the part of Io between the god and the desired, all pictures in the series take place either at this moment or immediately before. In the Metamorphoses of Ovid (. I, 563ff) it is, after futile Advertise Jupiter, said: They fled already, soon had the pastures of Lerna behind the tree-lined corridor in the mountains of Argos , when suddenly the god on the vast areas of darkness draws and envelops it. So he hampers the escape and robs Io of innocence. In the meantime Juno is looking down at the fields and is amazed how a fleeting mist covers them with night in a bright day. Correggio represents the god as a gentle cloud, his right hand embracing Io. Immediately next to the face of Io, a male face forms out of the cloud as it moves to kiss Io. A riddle for art history is the figure of the drinking deer in the lower right corner, it can be a hint of the father Ios, Inachos - a river god. Typical for Correggio is the strong light-dark contrast to increase the depth effect. Nevertheless, the picture captivates above all through the delicacy of the depiction of the flesh and the light guidance on it. Correggio managed to depict the delicate scene without any coarseness or vulgarity.

Max Semrau remarks about the paintings in the cycle: Never before has the impartiality of antiquity in the embodiment of the highest sensual pleasure been combined with so much mischievous grace and amiability as in these paintings.

literature

  • Wolfgang Braunfels : Small Italian Art History . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1509-0 .
  • Patrick de Rynck: The art of reading pictures - The old masters decipher and understand , Parthas Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86601-695-6 .
  • Will Durant: The Splendor and Decay of the Italian Renaissance . Volume 8 from Will and Ariel Durant's cultural history of mankind , 1st edition, Südwest Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-517-00562-2 .
  • Gerhard Fink (transl. And ed.): Ovid, Metamorphosen , Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-1016-0
  • Fritz Knapp : The artistic culture of the occident , 3 vols., 3rd to 4th ed., Kurt Schroeder Verlag, Bonn and Leipzig 1923
  • Max Semrau: The Art of the Renaissance in Italy and in the North . 3rd edition, Vol. III from Wilhelm Lübke, Grundriss der Kunstgeschichte , 14th edition, Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen 1912.
  • Rolf Toman (Ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing . Tandem Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8331-4582-7 .
  • Stefano Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces . DuMont Buchverlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-9113-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. Semrau: The Art of the Renaissance in Italy and in the North , p. 323.
  2. de Rynck: The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters decipher and understand , p. 168.
  3. ^ Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces , p. 251.
  4. de Rynck: The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters decipher and understand , p. 168.
  5. ^ Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces , p. 251.
  6. de Rynck: The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters decipher and understand , p. 168.
  7. Fink (transl. And ed.): Ovid, Metamorphosen , p. 26.
  8. de Rynck: The Art of Reading Pictures - The Old Masters decipher and understand , p. 168.
  9. Toman (ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance - architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing , p. 383.
  10. ^ Knapp: The artistic culture of the west , vol. II, p. 157.
  11. ^ Zuffi: The Renaissance - Art, Architecture, History, Masterpieces , p. 251.
  12. Semrau: The art of the Renaissance in Italy and in the north , p. 323/324.

Web links

Commons : Jupiter and Io (Correggio)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files