PirithousHippodamiaWedding1.0005

PirithousHippodamiaWedding1.0005_PieroDiCosimo

A nymph tending to a wounded man with an arrow in his leg, part of a larger mythological battle scene

It is worth using the link to the National Gallery site to visit this picture close-up. The "deeply disturbing" violence of the battle all around — Heracles clubbing a centaur (lower left), another centaur about to drop a burning stove on an lapith (3/4 right) — contrasts markedly with the orderly triangular-pedimental arrangement of the whole and the tenderness of the centauress's embrace.

Narrative gain: specifically Ovidian source material foregrounded for remarkable artistic significance. The tender affection of Hylonome for Cyllarus is unknown outside Ovid's Met. 12.393ff. could be regarded as didactic for a groom: in life's distractions be sure that love abides.

Other artists to pay attention to Hylonome include Francesco Bertos and David Backhouse. Aristide Maillol's treatment of the Lapithocentauromachy may bear some awareness of this approach to the myth.