Titian, Diana And Actaeon

Titian, Diana And Actaeon

One of the “poetic” paintings that captures the moment when young Actaeon stumbles upon goddess Diana bathing in the forest with a group of her nymphs and maidservants, created for King Philip II of Spain. This is one of the 'poesie' paintings with mythological subjects for King Philip II of Spain. Works inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses are among Titian's most admired paintings.

Titian used a broad palette of pigments known in the Renaissance, including vermilion, red lead, natural ultramarine, smalt, verdigris, malachite, mustard yellow, and lead-tin yellow.

The handsome young Actaeon goes hunting but accidentally enters the secret lair of Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt, after losing his friends. Diana and the virgin nymphs are bathing naked in the cool waters of a shadowy cave. The beautiful nymphs display varying degrees of alarm, curiosity, and even indifference about the handsome uninvited guest. The seated goddess Diana is a figure much more complex both anatomically and psychologically. She appears both sensuous and demonic, brazen and wonderful: a divine femme fatale.

From a theatrical perspective, Actaeon is approaching from 'stage right' and looking across at Diana, positioned on 'stage left', the traditional place of bad things. Recently, it has been discussed that the figure of Diana might have influenced Picasso while drawing the terrifying, crouching figure positioned 'stage left' in Desmoiselles d'Avignon, and there is a comparable sense of ill intent. Diana's symbol was the moon, but Titian's Diana wears a golden crescent moon on her head like a pair of deadly sharp horns. Her tiny head is poised, like a snake's, behind her raised left arm, ready to strike.

In the Renaissance, a woman's left side was considered her most beautiful side. The poet Tasso referred to this as the “soft side” in one of his love verses, while Venetian prostitute and poet Veronica Franco, in a line letter written to her favourite lover, promises to delight him with the pleasures of love "when he is near her left side" and pledges her own happiness to make him happy. Titian gives us an uninterrupted profile view of Diana's entire left side and raised left arm, and there is no doubt this is the best view: the goddess's right leg, being rubbed by one of the nymphs, appears coarse and awkward compared to her gracefully turned left leg. It is also less illuminated.

Now that Actaeon has feasted his eyes on Diana's beautiful left side, he must die. And here he turns into a deer and is devoured by his own dogs. We see him from the left, and in a tragic repetition of Diana's previous pose, he raises his left arm to fend off his own hunting dogs and Diana's arrow aimed directly at the human heart.

Diana and Actaeon, Diana and Callisto, and The Death of Actaeon, were hung together as part of the magnificent multi-art project Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, co-staged by the National Gallery London and the Royal Opera House.