Denon wing – 1st floor – Grande Galerie – Room 8
Venus, nonchalantly lying on a blue drapery, an arm rounded above the head, sleeps without suspecting that the secret of her charms is betrayed and that a satyr, but still retaining, in spite of this disguise his majestic Olympian beauty lifted the veil that hid them with a curious and libertine hand. Leaning towards the nymph, the satyr contemplates this beautiful body softened by the abandonment of sleep. In its warm and blonde whiteness, bathed in half-tints that drown the outlines and give it the roundness of life, under this torso of a grace so soft and tender, one nevertheless follows the details of anatomy lost in the mass by a science that is hidden under the charm; for it must not be forgotten that Correggio, with Michelangelo, is one of the most learned draughtsmen in the world. At the feet of the Venus, Cupid, having with him his quiver, pretends to sleep, lying on the grass, in a pose of childish indifference; but believe that he only sleeps with one eye, sees the whole merry-go-round and favors it. A rich landscape, muffled and dull, with tones of tawny velvet, serves as a background for this voluptuous mythological scene and admirably highlights the golden whiteness of the Venus, the focus of light in the painting. It is not a piece of marble, it lives, it throbs and the swelling of the breath raises its soft chest.
One remains stunned with admiration at Correggio’s voluptuous grace, which created a whole world of charming undulating shapes, divine smiles, silvery lights, transparent shadows and magical reflections. Correggio, if he did not invent chiaroscuro absolutely, drew from it at least new harmonies and unknown effects. His understanding of the shortcut and the perspective of the body allows him, by the unexpected aspects, curves printed lines, heads that ceiling or lean forward, poses boldly projected, to change the usual appearance of figures and groups, for this graceful, delicate, tender is also a man of profound knowledge; he possesses strength as he possesses grace, and the Giant Apostles of the dome of Parma are there to prove it. No one, not even Michelangelo, drew a bigger and more proud style. Moreover, his drawing is wrapped in an admirable color. Correggio is perhaps the most original of painters. He trained himself and pulled everything out of himself. Some researches have been made, we have not been able to find with certainty the name of any of his masters, and it does not seem that he has ever left his native country. His so-called journeys to Rome, to Florence, are nothing but proven. He owes nothing to his genius and to the nature that had so happily endowed him. This perfection, he acquired immediately and as effortlessly. At barely twenty, he was already in complete possession of his talent. Scarcely, in his first two or three pictures, can one perceive any drought or symmetry which links them to the previous school. Like Raphael, in a rather short life, he went through the entire cycle of art, with the difference that he worked alone and did not, to lend his hands to his thought, an army of enthusiastic and respectful pupils. , for the most part great painters themselves. Without having been poor, as biographers who are more fond of pathos than of truth tell us, he did not have that brilliant, blessed life, protected from the gods and men, which was the reward of the painter of Urbino. Although he spared nothing to perpetuate its duration, to employ the most expensive colors, the most carefully prepared canvases, his masterpieces were paid, in his lifetime, for mediocre prices. But posterity, seduced by the intoxicating charm of his Virgins and Nymphs, gave him an ivory throne among the gods of art, in the Olympus of painting. (Theophile Gautier.)
Correggio is not, like Rubens, a practitioner par excellence for whom painting consists mainly in the handling of the brush; he is a true poet who paints to express ideas and feelings. In all the arts, the most powerful men have no process. The instruments are the same for everyone; to learn how to handle them with genius, you must have them. Inseparable in her ingenious inventions, always new in her smiling mythologies, Correggio added to the ancient symbols the seduction of an immortal youth. A true poet of the Italian Renaissance by the sovereign charm of his fantasy, he remains, by the sweet emotion of his heart, a man of all countries and all times. Others, perhaps, have been more majestic and austere; no one better expressed beauty in his smile, life in his grace.
Venus and Cupid with a Satyr has long been part of the gallery of the Dukes of Mantua. Purchased first by Charles I, he then went into the cabinet of the banker Jabach, then in that of Mazarin. The heirs of the cardinal sold it to Louis XIV. It is today one of the most beautiful jewels of the Salon Carré.
Height: 1.90 – Width: 1.14 – Life-size figures.
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