Orpheus Charming Animals vs. Temptation of St. Anthony

Introduction: Allegory in Renaissance Painting

The theme of Orpheus charming the animals was a common one in medieval and Italian Renaissance painting. It adopts a familiar trope of the Orpheus myth — namely, that Orpheus was such a skillful musician he was able to soothe all of the beasts of the forest. Similarly, David Teniers' The Temptation of St. Anthony draws on an equally well-known religious narrative to create a work of layered symbolic meaning. Both paintings tell stories about their subjects' lives through allegorical composition rather than straightforward portraiture, and both use the arrangement of figures, the contrast of light and shadow, and the idealized human form to convey an ideological point of view.

Orpheus Charming the Animals: Composition and Symbolism

In this version of Orpheus Charming the Animals, rather than placing Orpheus at the immediate center of attention, the foreground features two fierce cheetahs. The presence of the cheetahs underlines the great singer's power. Their fierce gaze suggests that Orpheus can charm even the wildest beasts, and their foreground positioning indicates that the artist wished to emphasize precisely this fact. The background focus is not upon animals but upon a wide, pale sky and a hazy horizon that stands in direct contrast to the darkness of the grove. Nearly indistinguishable, shaded animals lurk in the smoky, soft-edged sfumato of the background, yet even they, their stillness suggests, are entranced by Orpheus' music.

Orpheus himself is small and positioned somewhat to the side of the center of the painting. His red cloak is his only distinctive feature, and even this is muted by the presence of a red macaw in the trees. With the lone exception of the cheetahs, the viewer gazes at the entire scene as if from a distance, and it is difficult to make out Orpheus' facial features. His gaze is gentle and impassive. What Orpheus represents is more important than his personal feelings within the scene, and his actions and the story the painting tells are just as important as his appearance.

Orpheus is clothed according to the conventions of the period in which the work was composed, creating a striking contrast between the domesticity of the human figure at the focal point and the wild animals that surround him. The composition organizes the animals according to their degree of domestication, placing the tamer species nearest Orpheus. He sits near different kinds of dogs, a striking paint horse, and a cat. A camel and a goat are also nearby, representing slightly less domesticated farm animals. Birds occupy the next circle around Orpheus or are seen flying and perching in the trees. Water buffalo, sheep, and other wildlife appear in the distance. Some of the animals gaze directly at Orpheus while others look into the distance. His spell upon the wild creatures is cast in concentric spirals — the farther out, the farther from human civilization. Representative animals such as the horse and the goat are highlighted by a glowing light to show the diversity of animal types, just as the cheetahs' presence in the foreground does.

Teniers' Temptation of St. Anthony: Light and Moral Contrast

Teniers' The Temptation of St. Anthony also makes use of dramatic composition to tell a symbolic story rather than produce a portrait. The story is famous in hagiographic tradition: while St. Anthony was in isolation, praying in the wilderness, he was tempted by images of what he had forsaken as a Christian, sent by the devil, and subjected to physical tortures. Like the symbolic depiction of Orpheus, the saint is flanked by other images that help tell the story of his life and underline the painting's themes. Teniers portrays St. Anthony sitting in a shaded desert grove, his attention wholly absorbed by his cross and his holy books.

"The light source is natural, as with his other paintings of the same subject, and comes from the window to the left, leaving the shadowy creatures who surround St. Anthony half lit" (Kummer 2011). The sky, representing heaven and divine light, occupies only a small area in the upper left-hand corner of the painting, while the majority of the canvas is shaded by the curving dome of the cave where the saint sits. The saint, wearing a simple blue robe, is flanked by very real-looking symbolic representations of sin. A buxom woman stands beside him, representing the lechery with which Anthony was tempted. Devils hover above. Small figures dressed in bright colors, with impish expressions on their faces, dance around him and engage in sin. Most of the devils, however, are portrayed as dark figures in the form of winged creatures. This creates a distinct contrast between the saint, the holy light of his devotion, and the darkness of evil.

Conclusion: Realism Within the Idealized Renaissance Vision

While idealized, Renaissance painting always retains a certain degree of realism in its heavy brushwork and attention to detail. Both Orpheus and Anthony are recognizably human, even while they perform supernatural feats of aesthetic and spiritual accomplishment. The paintings show these great figures in action — Orpheus in the act of playing, Anthony in the act of resisting temptation. The use of a fully realized scene is meant to add to, rather than detract from, the viewer's sense of awe at the subject's achievement.

References

Kummer, Julie. "The Temptation of Saint Anthony." [18 Nov 2011].

Seiferth, Michael. "Renaissance." [Course]. [18 Nov 2011]. http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/renaissance.html