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Description: | Calvaert was first apprenticed to the landscape painter Christian van den Queborne (b.1515). In common with other Flemish artists he then left his home country to continue his training in Italy. Never to return, Calvaert spent most of the rest of his life in Bologna. He built a reputation for highly finished copies of paintings by the Renaissance masters, and in 1575 opened a school for young artists where the method of instruction was based upon close study of fifteenth-century art and culture, mainly from prints. Calvaert painted mostly religious subjects; Dänae is a rare exception. In his composition for this work, the artist is drawing attention to his knowledge of mythology and to the work of other great Italian artists who have treated this particular mythological subject. According to mythology, Dänae is shut in a golden chamber by her father, Acrisius, who has been warned that if she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy, this child would eventually kill his grandfather. Zeus sidesteps Acrisius's attempts to prevent this happening by visiting Dänae in the disguise of a shower of golden rain, and she later gives birth to Zeus's son, the half-god, Perseus. The coat of arms in the right hand corner of the canvas provides an important clue about the history of the painting. It is evidence that this picture was painted in 1591 for Jacob Arnold, Captain of the Papal Swiss Guards in Bologna, where Calvaert worked. Arnold, like the artist, was evidently keen to be known as a man of learning who was conversant with classical mythology. | Subjects: | mythology (Dänae) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Calvaert, Denys (Flemish painter, ca. 1540-1619, active in Italy) Æ | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8719... | Go to resource |
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