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| 6"x6" oil |
This lovely gallery viewer (my sister) is only one of many who are
sneaking a peak at Jupiter and Callisto under a shady tree. This is a
very voyeuristic painting. First, Callisto was a River Goddess who
attended to and was quite chummy with Diana who warned her against men
and gods. Jupiter had fallen in love with Callisto so he tricked her
by disguising himself as Diana. Like all Greek myths, this is just the
beginning of a confusing and tragic story. So the painting on the wall
is of Jupiter, disguised as Diana, wooing Callisto. Part of what makes
it voyeuristic is that cupid is observing them from behind the tree, not
to mention all the gallery viewers who visit it at the St. Petersburg
Museum of Fine Art and, now, you who are looking at this little
painting. So, this is the rest of this tawdry story: Callisto became
pregnant, had a son, and was then turned into a bear by Jupiter's
jealous wife, Juno. Years later Callisto the bear saw her son in the
woods and ran to hug him. Fearing he was going to be attacked by a
bear, he shot and killed
his mother. They now reside together in the
evening sky as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. This story has
been painted in many forms by many famous artists. This version is by
Angelica Kauffman, one of those rare 18th Century successful women
artists whose story has lived to be told. Although she was Swedish, she
resided and was famous in both London and Venice. And I thought my
life was complicated...go figure!
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