Athena by Banville John

Author:Banville, John [Banville, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780307817198
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-14T05:00:00+00:00

5. Capture of Ganymede 1620

L.E. van Ohlbijn (1573-1621)

Oil on copper, 7¾ × 7 in. (19.2 × 17.8 cm.)

Although he is not best known as a miniaturist, van Ohlbijn puts his skills, modest though they may be, to finest use when working on a small scale, as we can see from this charmingly executed little scene, a curiosity among this curious collection. What strikes us first is the artist’s determination to avoid sentimentality – a determination the true result of which, some commentators believe, is a complete absence of sentiment, surely not the effect that was intended: a case, we may say, of throwing the bath-water out with the baby, or boy, in this instance. That doesn’t sound right. Van Ohlbijn has combined in this work the homely skills of the Dutch genre painter that he was, with some scraps of learning brought back with him from a winter spent in Venice and Rome in the early 1600s. We detect influences as disparate as Tintoretto, in the dash and dramatic pace of the piece, and Parmigianino in the curious elongation of the figures, while the almost vertiginous sense of elevation and dreamlike buoyancy anticipates the skyborne works of Gaulli and Tiepolo. There is evidence also, in the softness of textures and the diaphanous quality of the paint surface, that van Ohlbijn on his Italian journey studied with application the work of Perugino and Raphael. The figure of Ganymede is admirably fashioned, being both an individual, wholly human boy (the painter is said to have used his son as a model), and an emblematic representation of ephebic beauty. How affecting is the conjunction of the creatural grace and delicacy of this young male, with his Phrygian cap and his mantel thrown back over his shoulder, and the ferocity and remorseless power of the feral bird that holds him fast in its terrible talons. In the eagle’s muscled upward straining, its fierce eye and outstretched neck and flailing, bronzen wings, are manifested the power and pitiless majesty of the god. This is not our Father who is in Heaven, our guardian in the clouds; this is the deus invidus who kills our children, more Thanatos than Zeus Soter. Although the boy is bigger than the bird we are in no doubt as to which is the stronger: the talons clasped upon the narrow thighs are flexed with a peculiar delicacy yet we can feel their inescapable strength, while Ganymede’s outflung arm communicates a deeply affecting sense of pain and loss and surrender. The gesture is at once a frantic appeal for help and a last, despairing farewell to the mortal world from which the boy has been plucked. In contrast, the attitude of the boy’s father, King Tros, standing on the mossy pinnacle of Mount Ida, seems overstated and theatrical. His hands are lifted in impotent pleading and tears course down his cheeks. We do not quite credit his grief. He has the air of a man who knows he is being looked at and that much is expected of him.

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