0320.12aDanaë

Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) "La Cacia di Diana ("The Hunt of Diana") or [in Reid] "Diana with Nymphs at Play", 1616-1617, oil on canvas, Rome, Galleria Borghese, Sala 19, Collection of Cardinal Scipionie Borghese.

"With narrative fantasy, Domenichino reworks and calls to mind the style of the Titian's famous Bacchanals, the limpidity of Raphael, the sensuality of Correggio." The central scene shows Diana celebrating a feat of superior marksmanship in an archery contest. (The scene may be loosely reminiscent of Aeneid 5.485-518, games for Anchises; but the painter has altered many details and crafted his own story altogether.) The many nymphs surrounding the goddess are lost in their activity and revelry. Domenichino builds his composition upon two pairs of figures, most prominently the two nymphs in the lower foreground — one seems to communicate with the viewer inviting you to violate the company of the goddess, she who is a symbol of chasity and seduction. The second foregrounded nymph points to two unwelcome men leer through the hedge on the painting's extreme right edge, one of the men engages our gaze as does the first nude nymph in the lower foreground, but the other spies on Diana and her nymphs without no apparent regard to their privacy, to our awareness of his lurid acivity, nor (especially) to the risk he runs. If Actaeon's lesson applies to other viewers, the moment may not end well for these uninvited gawkers. (See Galleria Borghese website for the basis of this caption.)