Daphnis and Chloe through Art
Daphnis and Chloe in Art
I recently had to give a lecture on the reception of Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, an Ancient Greek Novel with a pastoral setting and a romantic plot. I collected some things that might as well be here. I'm not gonna spend too much effort on this, unless someone asks me to develop it further.
Introduction
Daphnis and Chloe tells the story of, guess what, Daphnis and Chloe. They were exposed, a practice common in Ancient Greece whereby the parents leave their baby out in the woods or near a temple, leaving them to their destiny. D & C are found suckling on a goat and a sheep, respectivel.The shepherds who find them raise them as their own. Soon enough they are asked to work as shepherds themselves. Thus begins their innocent love. As the novel goes along, they pass from ignorance of love to its culmination (it's sex!).
Statues
Book Illustrations
This romance was particularly popular from the Renaissance onwards as a vehicle for visual artists. The texts is very sensual (in the sense that it affects the senses), and this inspired a lot of artwork.
Lucien Pisarro did the following woodblocks:
The vintage.
Chloe washes Daphnis
Then Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts made their own woodblock, perhaps at the behest of Oscar Wilde. This blog has a bunch of stuff about them (https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/
Daphnis Bathing.
The dead dolphin on the shore.
The vintage again.
Pan and Syrinx myth
Daphnis piping
The winter episode.
Perhaps not from Daphnis and Chloe.
Later, Aristides Maillol did some more woodblock illustrations:
Chloe Bathing
Chloe Kidnapped
Grasshopper
Daphnis drives flock.
Daphnis plays pipe to Chloe
Daphnis plays pipe to goats
Syrinx disappears into the swamp.
In the 60's, Marc Chagall did some bizzare litographic illustrations that seem more popular than I would assume.
Bacchus.
Chloe judging Daphnis and Dorcon
Dorcon wears wolfskin
Philetas' garden.
Konstantin Somov in the 30's:
Chloe being kidnapped.
Daphnis and Chloe with the flocks.
Paintings
There are actually hundreds of paintings that take Daphnis and Chloe as subject-matter. I picked just three that I particularly liked.
Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé
François-Louis Français 1897
Pierre Auguste Cot 1880.
Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe
Maurice Ravel composed a ballet based on D & C, which is great and you should check out on youtube the different coreographers. But more interesting here is the original set pieces painted by Leon Bakst (teacher of the above referred Chagall). Bakst painted two different backgrounds which are fantastic:
Act I.
Act II.
Some fun tidbits
This Ancient Greek classic was curiously appreciated by the Japanese readership! It is one of the most popular Greek classics in print there. There's a bunch of edition with illustrations as well. I'm attaching one that I found:
