DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52770#0059
the set of draughtsmen carved by Hans Kels, now at Vienna {Jahrbuch der Kunst-
historischen Sammlungen des allerh. Kaiserhauses, iii, 1885) is interpreted expressly
as Neptune and Amymone, but this does not imply that Diirer himself attached this
meaning to it. (0. Lenz, Milnchener Jahrbuch, 1924, p. 103). Many different inter-
pretations have been suggested for this engraving, but none of them have met with
general acceptance. K. Lange discussed in Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1900, N.F., xi,
195, all the interpretations proposed up to that time—the rape of Amymone (a story
told by Lucian); Glaucus and Scylla (or Syme) ; Nessus and Deianira; rape of
Theodolinda, the wife of Chlojo, ancestor of the Merovingians, by a sea-monster, etc.
—and found fault with them all, concluding that no subject from mythology
or Teutonic legend was intended, but that Diirer was just representing one of the
tales of sea-monsters that were current, along with tales of many other kinds of
prodigies, in his day. These tales of seamen who carried off women were specially
connected with the Eastern coast of the Adriatic, and Diirer may have heard or read
them at Venice. Wolfflin takes much the same view. More recently another myth-
ological interpretation has been proposed, with considerable plausibility, by E.
Conrat-Tietze {Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1916, N.F., xxvii, 263), who accounts for the
comparative tranquillity of the woman and the absence of fierceness in the counten-
ance of the monster, by explaining them as the rescue of Perimele by the river-god
Achelous from the wrath of her father Hippodamas, a story told by Ovid (Metamor-
phoses, viii. 590-610). She was carried out to sea and, at the intercession of Achelous,
changed by Neptune into an island. In certain particulars, the scene represented
agrees remarkably with the narrative of Ovid. The river is in flood ; note that the
trees are growing out of the water, not on the shore as they should do. The monster
has a broken horn ; Achelous had lost one of his horns in an encounter with Hercules
(Met. ix, 85), but it should have been a bull’s horn. The bathing women are com-
pletely unexplained on this hypothesis, which will not by all be so unreservedly
accepted as by Dr. Pauli, who calls it “ absolutely convincing ” {Repertoriwm fiir
Kunstwissenschaft, 1919, xli, 28).
4i
historischen Sammlungen des allerh. Kaiserhauses, iii, 1885) is interpreted expressly
as Neptune and Amymone, but this does not imply that Diirer himself attached this
meaning to it. (0. Lenz, Milnchener Jahrbuch, 1924, p. 103). Many different inter-
pretations have been suggested for this engraving, but none of them have met with
general acceptance. K. Lange discussed in Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1900, N.F., xi,
195, all the interpretations proposed up to that time—the rape of Amymone (a story
told by Lucian); Glaucus and Scylla (or Syme) ; Nessus and Deianira; rape of
Theodolinda, the wife of Chlojo, ancestor of the Merovingians, by a sea-monster, etc.
—and found fault with them all, concluding that no subject from mythology
or Teutonic legend was intended, but that Diirer was just representing one of the
tales of sea-monsters that were current, along with tales of many other kinds of
prodigies, in his day. These tales of seamen who carried off women were specially
connected with the Eastern coast of the Adriatic, and Diirer may have heard or read
them at Venice. Wolfflin takes much the same view. More recently another myth-
ological interpretation has been proposed, with considerable plausibility, by E.
Conrat-Tietze {Zeitschr. f. bild. Kunst, 1916, N.F., xxvii, 263), who accounts for the
comparative tranquillity of the woman and the absence of fierceness in the counten-
ance of the monster, by explaining them as the rescue of Perimele by the river-god
Achelous from the wrath of her father Hippodamas, a story told by Ovid (Metamor-
phoses, viii. 590-610). She was carried out to sea and, at the intercession of Achelous,
changed by Neptune into an island. In certain particulars, the scene represented
agrees remarkably with the narrative of Ovid. The river is in flood ; note that the
trees are growing out of the water, not on the shore as they should do. The monster
has a broken horn ; Achelous had lost one of his horns in an encounter with Hercules
(Met. ix, 85), but it should have been a bull’s horn. The bathing women are com-
pletely unexplained on this hypothesis, which will not by all be so unreservedly
accepted as by Dr. Pauli, who calls it “ absolutely convincing ” {Repertoriwm fiir
Kunstwissenschaft, 1919, xli, 28).
4i