Paintings are mute. They can’t explain themselves, beyond their titles, which are sometimes obscure or of questionable origin. The entire tradition of painting, in fact, rests on those very first cave paintings of animals, the meanings of which can never be known for sure. Most paintings are forthright in declaring their subject – “The Martyrdom of Saint So and So” or “View of Such and Such” – but others are more mysterious.
Such is the case with Dosso Dossi, a great painter of the Italian Renaissance, much esteemed in his day, but, perhaps because he worked his entire career in Ferrara – rather than the more important cities of Rome or Venice – his name is less well known to us than that of Titian or Raphael.
“Circe and her Lovers in a Landscape.”
During Dosso’s day – his career lasted from 1513 to 1542 – the court of the Este family in Ferrara fostered what might be called the cutting edge of Renaissance art. Dosso’s patron, Alfonso I, third duke of Ferrara, was of an unusually artistic temperament himself. He made ceramics, cast works in bronze, and spent much of his leisure time with artists. It was a court in which wit, sophistication, and the ideals of beauty and poetry reigned supreme.
In this hothouse atmosphere of artistic creation, Dosso was free to indulge his poetic imagination to his heart’s content. He was strongly influenced by Giorgione, and shared that artist’s penchant for paintings that evoked a mood of poetic mystery. Many of his pictures portray mythological or allegorical scenes, but are often enigmatic. They are not the conventional stories, but free interpretations based on obscure poems or ideas of his own.
On top of this, Dosso worked in a unique improvisational style, composing directly on the canvas without a firm underdrawing. Technical studies have shown that he added and subtracted figures freely as he worked, altering the narrative and inventing new imagery as he painted. In a painting called “Allegory With Pan,” for example, X-rays show that he began with three figures, painted out one – now visible because of a 19th century restoration – and added Pan only at the last moment.
For this reason, Dosso has been something of a delight to scholars, who have been debating the meanings of his paintings for centuries. At the same time, this insistence on a personal take on things strikes a chord with contemporary sensibilities. Now, some 60 of his works are on view at the Metropolitan Museum in an exhibit that brings together many of his works that were dispersed at the end of the Este rule in the late 16th century.
An early example of Dosso’s free interpretation of mythology is the painting entitled “Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape.” The painting appears to show the malevolent sorceress from Homer’s “Odyssey,” who changed her lovers into animals. Around her are several dogs, deer, and birds while she herself holds up a tablet inscribed with magic spells. Nevertheless, because certain symbols associated with Circe are missing from this work, scholars have speculated that she is another sorceress, Alcina, or a nymph named Canens, from stories told by other authors. Whatever the true story, however, what makes the painting great is its air of magic and danger, and the evocative landscape in the background, with its delicate trees and the rustic house half concealed in the mist.
A similar painting, considered Dosso’s masterpiece, is even more of a puzzle. Its title is either “Melissa” or “Circe” depending on the interpretation. Here, too, is an enchantress, this one dressed in a turban and a sumptuous costume, and also holding some tablet with obscure symbols on it. There are animals around her, and she lights a wand-like torch from a fire, as if about to perform some magic. If Circe, she is turning men into animals, but if Melissa – a character from a Renaissance poem – she is the opposite, a good enchantress rescuing knights who have been transformed by an evil sorceress named Alcina.
The clues here are fun to puzzle over. This enchantress definitely has a benign countenance. Are those soldiers in the background knights who have already been rescued? Are those curious doll-like figures strapped to the upper trunk of the tree turning back to their original state? An X-ray of the picture shows that it originally had the figure of a knight standing cross-legged to her left, perhaps having just been restored to his original form. Or, was it supposed to be the other way around?
One of the oddest paintings in the show is entitled “Jupiter, Mercury, and Virtue.” Apparently inspired by a 15th century dialogue by Leon Battista Alberti, it shows Virtue, a bit disheveled from mistreatment by the goddess Fortune, trying to approach Jupiter for assistance. In one of the strangest portrayals ever of Jupiter, the king of the gods is shown as an almost effeminate artist, sitting with legs crossed, thunderbolts discarded at his feet, and painting butterflies on a canvas. Mercury, positioned between the two, plays the role of secretary, gesturing with a finger to his lip that Virtue must wait quietly for a word with the busy god, whose actions are essential to the birth of spring.
There’s something refreshing in the tongue-in-cheek, almost mock-heroic characterization of these gods, whom most artists render in trite or conventional ways.
The painting that takes the prize for the most possible interpretations is one that shows three figures by the bank of a river: a sleeping nude woman, and old woman holding her protectively, and a clothed young woman raising one hand and dipping the other into a vase. It’s variously called “Mythological Allegory,” “The Transformation of Syrinx,” and “Diana and Callisto.” In one story, the nymph Syrinx, asleep by the river, has begged to be transformed into a reed to escape the god Pan. The old woman is Earth; the standing woman, about to perform the transformation, is Diana. In another interpretation, the three are allegorical figures standing for Nature, Philosophy, and Virtue, and in another the sleeping woman is Venus.
Once again, as in Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” and Giorgione’s “The Tempest,” what draws us into this painting, what makes it unforgettable, is the mystery itself, the sense of life as something that is never fully explained, a mood reflected in the brooding landscape in the background with its shadowy forest, stormy sky, and the exotic skyline of a strange and distant city.
It is a tribute to Dosso that we leave this show convinced that paintings should never reveal all their secrets, that they communicate to us on levels deeper than that of straightforward narrative, and that ambiguity and elusiveness are not weaknesses but strengths.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1999
