Exhibition dates: February 3 – May 2, 2004
Exhibition location: Galleries for Drawings, Prints and Photographs
Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo among others.
The exhibition is made possible by The Schiff Foundation.
Artists, including devoted students of ancient art such as Andrea Mantegna and Raphael, led the way in the investigation and revival of antiquity that characterized
the Italian Renaissance. To publicize the results of their research, many artists turned to printmaking — some collaborating with master printmakers, others creating their own engravings and woodcuts. These inexpensive and portable works were among the earliest to illustrate pagan tales in a style based on the study of ancient art and served to generate enthusiasm for mythological subject matter throughout Europe.
In the 17th century, artists such as Pietro Testa and Salvator Rosa found the medium ideal for the dissemination of novel mythological allegories derived from their reading of classical sources. Eighteenth-century artists such as Giambattista Tiepolo and Giovanni David also found an artistic outlet in printmaking, creating original etchings that evoked a mythical pastoral world or narrated pagan tales of love and heroism. In addition, from Pollaiuolo's Labors of Hercules to Meng's Parnassus, mythological designs in all media were recorded in prints that fed the fascination for such subjects and helped to maintain the central role of the classical gods in Western art into the early decades of the 19th century.
The exhibition is arranged thematically, focusing on subjects favored by Italian artists including the ancient gods as patrons of music, poetry, and painting, and as participants in musical competitions, along with the festivities surrounding Bacchus and Silenus. Several prints in the exhibition illustrate the popularity of Silenus, the tutor of Bacchus, known for his drunkenness and obesity, yet also for his wisdom, prophetic powers, and poetic gifts. An engraving by Mantegna, Bacchanal with Silenus (ca. 1470s), dating from the first decades of printmaking in Italy, is remarkable both for its technical innovations and as one of the first Renaissance works in any medium to depict a pagan subject in a thoroughly classical style.
A large section of the exhibition is devoted to the triumph of love — the power of Cupid's arrows to make fools of even the most august gods. The exhibition concludes with the heroic exploits of Hercules and the legendary history of Rome, from the apple of discord that initiated the Trojan War to the rape of the Sabine women.
Poets, Lovers, and Heroes is organized by Wendy Thompson, Assistant Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum.
Exhibition design is by Daniel Kershaw, Exhibition Designer, with graphic design by Constance Norkin, Graphic Designer, and lighting by Clint Coller and Rich Lichte, Lighting Assistants, all of the Museum's Design Department.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a Metropolitan Museum of Art publication with text by the curator.
A variety of educational programs will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition. A teacher workshop will be held on April 24, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Gallery talks will be held on February 17 and 24, March 5 and 17, and April 20 and 30. On March 20, at 2:00 p.m., exhibition curator Wendy Thompson will give a talk related to the exhibition. A Sunday at the Met program on April 4 will include: a lecture at 2:00 p.m. by Leonard Barkan, Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature and Director, Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, Princeton University; and a performance of Renaissance and Baroque musical works with mythological themes at 3:30 p.m.
The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum's Web site, www.metmuseum.org.
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