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Masterpieces from World Museums at the Hermitage The ongoing series of exhibitions, Masterpieces from World Museums at the Hermitage presents Correggio’s renowned Danae from the Galleria Borghese, Rome, in the Italian Cabinets of the New Hermitage (Hall 233). The exhibit was organized by the State Hermitage in cooperation with the Galleria Borghese and the Association of Museums in Rome with the help of Enel Company. Antonio Allegri (1489-1534), better known as Correggio (the location where he was born) belonged to the constellation of the Renaissance’s greatest masters. The artist became famous both for his frescos and for numerous mythological, allegorical, and religious easel paintings. Danae (approx. 1530) belongs to the artist’s last creative period, and was one of a series of canvases painted by him for Duke of Mantua Federico II of Gonzaga on the amours of Jupiter, which also included Io and Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle (Museum of Art History, Vienna), and Leda (National Museums, Art Gallery, Berlin). The scenarios originate from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the king of Argos, Acrisius, is told by an oracle that he will be killed by his grandson. In order to escape death, the king immures his daughter Danae into a tower. Captivated with the princess’ beauty, Jupiter turns himself into a shower of gold to enter the tower. The myth of Danae was a favorite with Renaissance artists. Correggio handles the story in style of his own. In contrast to Titian’s Danae from the Hermitage’s collection, for example, Correggio’s heroine is a very young girl. She admires herself and pays little attention to the gold coins falling from heaven. Cupid, sitting at the foot of the bed acts as a medium between Jupiter and the princess. Correggio was highly concerned with lighting. In Danae, the light source originates on the right portion of the composition. The rays give the edge of the canopy a golden hue and saturate Danae’s body, contrasting the shadows and helping to create a sensation of tangibility with the Cupid’s solid boyish figure. The light is evenly dissipated, merging the shades of color into a single gold-brown palette. At the foot of the bed, there are two little amours: one winged, personifying heavenly love, and another wingless, a symbol of earthly love. They “explore the arrows on the rock, made of gold and lead”. According to Ovid, a golden arrow inspires love and a leaden arrow drives it away. The mediaeval treatment of Danae’s image, traditionally seen as the personification of chastity and associated with the divine conception of Mary, was understood anew by the renaissance’s sense of hedonism as the celebration of human feelings and physical grace. Since being acquired by Camillo Borghese in Paris in 1827, Danae has been one of the greatest treasures of the Galleria Borghese. The State Hermitage Publishing House has prepared an illustrated booklet for the exhibition. The booklet’s author, Tatiana Kustodieva, is a Ph.D. candidate in art history, a leading researcher at the Department of Western European Art of the State Hermitage, and curator of the exhibition. |
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