Hippomenes and Atalanta
1618 - 1619. Oil on canvas.Room 026
The painting depicts a scene from the classical myth of Hippomenes and Atalanta as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book X, verses 560–707). The episode had already been narrated by earlier writers – among them Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, and Apollodorus – whose accounts, though differing in minor details, were essentially the same.
The young Atalanta, daughter of King Schoeneus, had been warned by an oracle that marriage would be her undoing. Her childhood had not been easy, having been abandoned in the woods by her own father, who refused to have a female heir. There, nursed by a she-bear sent by the goddess Diana, she survived until she was rescued by hunters. Having resolved to devote her virginity to Diana, she steadfastly refused to marry; at her father’s insistence, however, she later agreed to receive suitors. But she established one harsh condition: as a swift runner herself, she would only marry the man that could beat her in a race, demanding that unsuccessful suitors be put to death. Young Hippomenes, great-grandson of the god Neptune, who had gone to watch the contest, fell in love with Atalanta at first sight. He therefore urged the maiden to race against him, arguing that – since he was descended from the gods – this would be a real challenge for her. Even so, aware of the difficulty and the risk involved, Hippomenes appealed for help to Venus, goddess of love and beauty, who devised a stratagem by which he could win the race. The goddess gave him three golden fruits, brought – depending on the version of the myth – either from the mythical Garden of the Hesperides or from Venus’ own garden on Cyprus. Hippomenes should drop the fruits one by one in the course of the race to distract his beloved rival, thus enabling him to overtake her. For her own part, Atalanta had also felt some stirring of desire for the youth, and even as the race started was perhaps not unwilling to be outrun. Whenever Atalanta drew level with him, Hippomenes dropped one of the fruits at her feet, duly distracting her. Reni chooses to focus on the crucial moment just before Hippomenes drops the third apple (hidden behind his back), which Venus made much heavier than the rest. The youth thus gained the lead which would ensure his final victory, allowing him to claim Atalanta as his wife. The lovers’ story, however, was to end in tragedy: as Hippomenes was taking Atalanta to his home, the couple was seized by a fit of passion and stopped to make love in a temple devoted to Cybele, thereby arousing the wrath of the goddess. In divine punishment, they were turned into lions, forever doomed to draw the chariot of the deity whom they had offended.
Since Ovid’s Metamorphoses was almost certainly the main literary source for Reni’s interpretation of the myth, his composition may conceivably owe something to prints made for illustrated versions of that writer’s famous account, including one by Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) for an edition published in Amsterdam in 1606, which – like Guido’s painting – is notable for its marked diagonals. He may also have seen the title page of Atalanta fugiens (1618) – a complex book of emblems, alchemy, and music by the German physician Michael Maier – the lower portion of which depicts the race. This book, published at around the time Reni’s painting is thought to have been produced, sparked such fierce controversy in Italy due to its heterodox message that it had to be republished immediately with a reinforced Christian reading. In both prints, however, the position of the two figures is inverted with respect to the painting.
In the coastal landscape stretching out behind Hippomenes and Atalanta, land and sky each occupy half the canvas. Groups of figures placed at either edge of the central area would appear to represent, respectively, the judges of the race and the spectators, including Atalanta’s other suitors. The recent restoration of the Prado canvas has shed new light on Reni’s treatment of the horizon and shown how the deterioration of the pigment used for the sky – enamel blue – has irreversibly darkened the composition; restoration work has also confirmed that Guido applied subtle white glazes (now mostly lost) enveloping the clouds, giving them a much more fleecy appearance. Taking into account these alterations over time, we may conclude that this was not intended to be an artificially lit piece à la Caravaggio, but rather a much brighter painting, closer in that respect to the Bacchus and Ariadne in the Roland Römer collection. This view is borne out by the only known early copy of the work, a small-format painting on copper (Gallerie degli Uffizi, inv. 1890 no. 9983), although it lightens the composition somewhat radically. Two strips of canvas have been added to the left and lower edges of the Madrid painting. Though not added by the artist himself, they were painted at an early stage. Both are now covered by the new frame that accompanies the painting, thus enabling the viewer to appreciate the master’s original work.
Technical studies of the Madrid Hippomenes and Atalanta performed at the Museo del Prado on the occasion of this show have revealed that Reni’s execution was, from the outset, both highly confident and precise. This is confirmed by the infrared reflectogram, which suggests that the artist may well have used a preparatory cartoon or ‘veil’; if so, it must also have been used in the Capodimonte version (no. Q 349), where only the figure of Hippomenes is apparently very slightly displaced with respect to its Prado counterpart. Debate has long raged among Reni scholars as to which of the two is the ‘original’. The technical research mentioned earlier, as well as a visual comparison with the Naples canvas, would appear to confirm Stephen Pepper’s view that the Madrid version is the ‘original’, though this does not rule out the possibility that the Capodimonte canvas is an autograph repetition by Reni himself, produced some time later. Pepper dates the Prado work to 1618–19, based on a comparison with contemporary pieces which he regards as closely related, such as the Labours of Hercules cycle in the Louvre, while he believes that the Capodimonte version was painted in around 1625.
García Cueto, David, 'Guido Reni. Hippomenes and Atalanta'. In: Guido Reni, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2023, p.313-320 nº 61
