The island of Sicily lies between the ‘toe’ of Italy and North Africa, and has evidence of human habitation going back long before recorded history. This weekend, in two articles, I look at paintings of its past, mythical, legendary and historical.
The abduction of Proserpine
Sicily played a role in several classical myths, thanks largely to its active volcanoes, which became known as gateways to the Underworld. Mount Etna, largest active volcano in Europe, thus has a strong association with Pluto, king of Hades, who occasionally left his kingdom to ride around and check that all was well with the volcano.
When Venus saw him, she decided to get her son Cupid to make him fall in love with Proserpine, young daughter of Ceres, who was picking flowers by Lake Pergus, an idyllic spot. Pluto arrived quickly, and as he made off with the young girl in his chariot, they passed a pool where the nymph Cyane lived. She tried to stop them, but Pluto opened up a cleft in the ground, and drove quickly through it down to his kingdom. Cyane was so heartbroken at this that she melted away in tears of grief. Proserpine’s mother Ceres was also grief-stricken and searched for her missing child. Her grief destroyed the harvest of Sicily.
Clik here to view.
Niccolò dell’Abbate’s The Rape of Proserpine (c 1570) gives a fine account of this story using multiplex narrative. Under ink-black clouds associated with Hades, Pluto is seen carrying Proserpine up a hill. At the far right, he is about to drive his chariot into a huge cavern, which will take them down into the underworld. In the foreground, Cyane is by her pool, and about to literally dissolve into tears in its water. Six other nymphs, the daughters of Achelous, are also protesting at the girl’s abduction.
Acis and Galatea
When Acis, son of the river nymph Symaethis, was only sixteen, Galatea fell in love with him, but the Cyclops Polyphemus fell in love with her. The latter did his best to smarten his appearance for her, but remained deeply and murderously jealous of Acis. Telemus, a seer, visited Sicily and warned Polyphemus that Ulysses would blind his single eye. This upset the Cyclops, who climbed a coastal hill and sat there, playing his reed pipes.
Meanwhile, Galatea was lying in the arms of her lover Acis, hidden behind a rock on the beach. Polyphemus then launched into a long soliloquy imploring Galatea to come to him and spurn Acis. When he saw the two lovers together, Polyphemus grew angry, and shouted loudly at them that that would be their last embrace. Galatea dived into the sea, but her lover was crushed to death by the boulder that Polyphemus lobbed at him.
Clik here to view.
Claude’s wonderful Coastal Landscape with Acis and Galatea (1657) is first and foremost a coastal landscape, but also tells this story faithfully. Polyphemus is seen at the right, watching Acis and Galatea in their makeshift shelter down at the water’s edge, with Cupid sat beside them. Additional Nereids are tucked away in the trees at the left.
Clik here to view.
Gustave Moreau’s Galatea from about 1880 shows her resting naked in the countryside with her eyes closed, and the cyclops playing sinister voyeur. Surrounding them is a magical countryside, filled with strange plants recalling anemones, as would be appropriate to a sea-nymph. Polyphemus is shown with two ‘normal’ eyesockets and lids, his single seeing eye staring out disconcertingly from the middle of his forehead.
Clik here to view.
Odilon Redon’s The Cyclops (c 1914) is one of the masterpieces of Symbolism, which follows Redon’s personal theme of the eye and sight, and further develops that of the voyeurism of Polyphemus. Polyphemus’ face is now dominated by his single eye looking down over Galatea’s naked beauty, with Acis nowhere to be seen.
Scylla and Glaucus
Scylla was walking naked along the shore of Sicily when the figure of Glaucus suddenly broke the surface of the water. He was immediately enchanted by her, and tried to engage her in conversation to prevent her from running away. But Scylla ran away in terror, and climbed a nearby cliff to try to work out what he was. He could tell what she was thinking, and assured her that he was a sea-god. He had once been an ordinary mortal, and fished with nets, and rod and line.
One day, the fish he had caught started to move when he had laid them out on the grass, and one by one they escaped back into the water. He couldn’t understand how that had happened, so chewed stems of the plants they had rested on. As soon as he swallowed that, he was transformed and swam off in the sea. He visited the gods Tethys and Oceanus for removal of the last remains of his mortal form, then saw his new appearance.
Scylla ran off, leaving Glaucus angry, so he made his way to the sorceress Circe, and Scylla was turned into a sea monster.
Clik here to view.
Turner’s Glaucus and Scylla (1841) would perhaps have looked more at home among paintings made fifty or even eighty years later. The naked Scylla is on the beach at the right, with a couple of cupids flying about. The rather inchoate figure of Glaucus is emerging to the left of centre, holding his arms out towards Scylla. She will have none of it, though, and has already turned to run, while looking back over her shoulder towards him. We look directly into the setting sun, which has coloured the world a rich gold. In the right background the low coastal land rises to sheer cliffs, on top of which is a temple. A tower atop a nearer pinnacle, or more distant lower red rocks, may be a reference to Scylla’s fate.
Clik here to view.
Ary Renan combines Charybdis and Scylla (1894) in his imaginative depiction of the dangers to mariners in the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was said to be a six-headed sea monster, but was actually a rock shoal, and Charybdis was a whirlpool. Renan shows the whirlpool with its mountainous standing waves at the left, and the rocks at the right, with the form of a beautiful mermaid embedded in them.
History
Clik here to view.
The Sicilian artist Giuseppe Sciuti’s painting of The Battle of Himera (1873) shows one of the battles in the Sicilian Wars, fought in about 480 BCE between Gelon, the Greek king of Syracuse, Sicily, and Hamilcar of Carthage. This is claimed to have coincided with the naval battle of Salamis, and/or the Battle of Thermopylae, and has been eclipsed by both of them. Here the Greeks won, and inflicted heavy casualties on the Carthaginians. This image shows what’s most probably a late oil study for the finished work, still very painterly in passages, and is perhaps the more atmospheric as a result. Sciuti’s finished painting was exhibited and sold in London in 1888, but seems to have vanished without trace.
Clik here to view.
The following year, Sciuti painted The Funeral of Timoleon, which was bought by the city of Palermo. Timoleon was a great Greek general, who was formative in the history of the Greek colonies in Sicily, particularly the city of Syracuse. Sciuti here outdoes Gérôme’s spectacular recreations with his vast crowd and wide-screen vision. Timoleon’s funeral pyre burns in the right foreground, ready to cremate his body when it has been carried from the other side of the forum.
Tomorrow I’ll show paintings of the more recent history of Sicily.