Page 261 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

the University at Wittenberg, Georg Spalatin, Ah, spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave, concerns rather than seductive, but German
obtained many books from the leading Italian And drink in silence or in silence leave. small-scale sculpture of comparable subjects sug-
presses, and it was from one of the Venetian vol- (Kurz 1953) gests that the portrayal of women with this kind
umes, Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia of mannered grace had a distinct appeal in court
Polifili (1499), that Cranach derived the major The general idea of Cranach's Nymph, with the circles at this time. Indeed, the costumes in Cra-
visual inspiration for his reclining nymph. Like condensed version of the epigram, clearly con- nach's more flamboyant images of clothed women
the inscription on the versions of Venus with forms to this type of "Danube fountain," but he speak a similar language of artifice and unreal
Cupid the Honey-Thief, the Latin hexameter on has amplified and modified the basic image in promise. The language is less conspicuously
the painting— "I am the nymph of the sacred ways that seem to enhance its amatory associa- multidimensional than the complex images of
font. Do not interrupt my sleep for I am at tions. The conjugal partridges at which the naked females by Hans Baldung Grien, in which
peace" — may be directly taken from one of the nymph casts a sleepy glance are associated with the sensual vanity of earthly beauty is regularly
texts in the library (Leeman 1984). The nymph of Venus (Liebman 1968), while the bow and quiver undermined by premonitions of death. Even
the well became one of Cranach's popular subjects are more likely to belong to Cupid than to the when the inscriptions in Cranach's pagan subjects
and exists in a number of variants. The earliest chaste Diana. In the earliest version the nymph suggest a moral, as in the story of Cupid the
may be the panel in Leipzig (Museum der bilden- looks enticingly through half-closed eyes at the honey-thief, the actual portrayal of the theme
den Kiinste; Friedlander 1978, no. 119), which is spectator, and in all the variants the erotic ele- exudes an air of playful delectation and humanist
dated 1518, and there is a further dated version in ments are underlined. In contrast to the inscrip- wit rather than heavy moralizing.
the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Friedlander tions, her heavy-lidded eyes are never completely M.K.
1978, no. 259), which is inscribed 1534 on the rim closed and give a teasing ambiguity to the injunc-
of the fountain. The Washington painting, which tion not to disturb her dreams. In the Washington
is clearly autograph, can be dated to 1537 or painting, she not only possesses the customary
slightly later, since it was in this year that the jewelry and provocative veils but also reclines on
dragon device from his coat of arms (which he had a splendid velvet dress with slashed sleeves, which *59
been granted in 1508) appears with its wings serves to emphasize her courtly accessibility Bernardino Luini
folded, perhaps in deference to the death of his rather than her mythological remoteness. In one Milanese, c. 1480-1532
eldest son and collaborator, Hans. late painting, The Fountain of Youth (1546,
The motif of the sleeping nymph was well Gemaldegalerie Staatliche Museen Preussischer NYMPH OF THE SPRING (OR VENUS)
known in humanist circles in the early sixteenth Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Friedlander 1978, no. 407), c. 1525
century through what was widely assumed to be cartloads of stolid and aging women enter a pool oil on panel
an ancient epigram, although it was actually a filled by a fountain, subsequently to emerge on 107 x 136 (42 x 53 /2J
2
fifteenth-century invention. The epigram was the other side as fashionable objects of desire. One references: Ottino della Chiesa 1956; Shapley 1968,
said to have accompanied a carving of "a sleeping of the metamorphosed ladies reclines on the side 143; Luino 1974, 94; MacDougall 1975; Shapley
nymph in a beautiful fountain above the banks of of the pool in the same pose as the nymph of the 1979, no. 231
the Danube." In Alexander Pope's picturesque sacred well. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H.
translation it reads: The marked emphasis on the doll-like delicacy Kress Collection
and the exaggeratedly linear contours of Cranach's
Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep, female nudes tend to make them appear to
And to the murmur of these waters sleep. modern eyes curiously abstracted from fleshly Of the Milanese painters who fell under Leonar-
do's spell, Luini retained the most distinct artistic
personality. This painting appears to date from
the 15 2os, when his style was fully evolved,
and is comparable to the frescoes he executed at
Saronno, which are dated 1525. Although Leo-
nardo's lost painting of Leda was one of the first
depictions of a nude female figure in a luxuriant
setting, Luini seems here to be influenced by the
popular Venetian type of Venus reclining in a
landscape as painted by Giorgione, Titian, Lotto,
and Palma Vecchio. Luini shares with Palma a
tendency to simplify and generalize female anat-
omy in keeping with the classical ideal. The
mountains in the distance are quite Leonardesque,
but the landscape as a whole and the minutely
observed plants suggest the direct inspiration of
northern art, perhaps even of Lucas Cranach, who
had portrayed similar subjects at least as early
as 1518.
The nude in this picture has, not surprisingly,
been identified as Venus, but the water spouting
into the pool in the front of the scene indicates
that she is more likely to be a guardian nymph of
a sacred spring, as celebrated in a supposedly
ancient epigram (MacDougall 1975) and as depicted

260 CIRCA 1492