Image of Vertumnus and Pomona in Later Art
The subject Vertumnus and Pomona appealed to European sculptors and painters of the 16th through the 18th centuries for its opportunity to contrast young fresh female beauty with an aged crone, providing a wholly disguised erotic subtext,. Donald Lateiner points out that Ovid does remark that the kisses given by Vertumnus were such as an old woman would never have given: qualia numquam vera dedisset anus: "so Circe's smile conceals a wicked intention, and Vertumnus' hot kisses ill suit an old woman's disguise".
The subject was even woven into tapestry in series with the generic theme Loves of the Gods, of which the mid-sixteenth century Brussels tapestry at Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, woven to cartoons attributed to Jan Vermeyen, must be among the earliest.
François Boucher provided designs for the tapestry-weaver Maurice Jacques at the Gobelins tapestry manufactory for a series that included Vertumnus and Pomona (1775–1778), and, extending the theme of erotic disguise, Jupiter wooing Callisto in the guise of Diana: an example is at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Mme de Pompadour, who sang well and danced gracefully, had played the role of Pomone in a pastoral presented to a small audience at Versailles; the sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (1760) alludes to the event.
Joseph Brodsky wrote a poem about Vertumnus.
Read more about this topic: Vertumnus
Famous quotes containing the words image of, image and/or art:
“The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world.... One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)
“For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)