0174ApolloSunGod

0174ApolloSunGod_Jouvenet4

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

ChateauVersailles.fr website
Ovid Met.1.750-2.400

Jean Jouvenet, "Apollo and Tethys," 1700, painting for the Gran Trianon at Versailles.

Jouvenet painted the scene of Apollo leaving Tethys for the apartment of Mme de Maintenon in the Grand Trianon.

A. Schnapper, Jean Jouvenet, 1644-1717 et la peinture d'histoire à Paris (Paris, 1974): 141.

Baroque painting depicts figures in flowing drapery, a central male figure reaches down, surrounded by others in a dramatic, light-filled scene

Louis XIV: "Never has anyone ... so clearly established the striking parallel between king and sun." Girard p. 189

Schnapper analyzes little more than the layout: "...est lui aussi organisé en trois registres: deux personnages en bas à gauche, un groupe principal de trois figures au centre, au sommet un personnage en diagonale qui semble prendre son vol. La composition est beaucoup plus calme que celle du même sujet peint en 1695 lors de son séjour à Rennes, mais, autant qu'on en puisse en juger d'après la médiocre copie du musée de Rennes, le coloris en est assez voisin."

Girard p. 212. The image at left comes from Schnapper.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.