TITIAN , active about 1506; died 1576
Diana and Callisto
Date: 1556-59
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 187 x 204.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought jointly by the National Gallery and National Galleries of Scotland with contributions from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, The Monument Trust and through private appeal and bequests, 2012
Callisto was the favourite of Diana, virgin goddess of the hunt. Her beauty aroused the attention of Jupiter, king of the gods, who seduced her by disguising himself as Diana. Nine months later Callisto’s pregnancy was discovered when she was forced by her suspicious companions to strip and bathe after hunting. Titian chose to paint the moment of her humiliating exposure and banishment from Diana’s chaste entourage.
‘Diana and Callisto’ and Diana and Actaeon were painted for King Philip II of Spain between 1556 and 1559 and belong to a group of large-scale mythologies inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ – Titian himself referred to them as ‘poesie’, the visual equivalent of poetry. At the same time, Titian began another painting associated with this pair, the Death of Actaeon, also in the National Gallery. For some reason, Titian never sent this painting to the king and it remained in his studio, probably unfinished, at his death.
Diana and Callisto
Anger of Diana expels Callisto from
the order of Nymphs,
The betrayal has its price in every
soul. Ovid’s parlor has yet a struggle
of the Human - What the gods are
telling us in the canvas of Titian…
The last gave a piece of splendor.
We are still in fight with the constellations; standing on the wings
of a constant allure of transformations, to give birth to Love- through
a smile as mere description of pregnancy for the lessons we ought
to learn and keep with are hidden as sin; has a pace to follow upon
visible
spots from Zenith to Nadir of our hemisphere- a Blue Beauty-
a jewel in the crown of The Kingdom of the Sun- The Omnipotent.
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