Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

21
mikeh wrote:Huck: It may be that it's not the rabbit that's sacred to Venus, but the hare. Strauss may have confused the two. Hares have their tails downward, e.g. http://www.treknature.com/gallery/photo192212.htm. The animals in Titian's painting look more like hares than rabbits: bigger and quicker, for one thing. Yesterday I happened to go to my local museum to see a traveling exhibition of Greco-Roman art from the British Museum. The placard for one of the pieces, prepared by the British Museum, said that hares were a standard love gift between older males and younger males in Athenian society. I would expect that this information comes from classical literary sources that would have been available to the humanists of the later 15th century.
... :-) ...
mikeh wrote:Huck: a rabbit going in its hole would fit the overall symbolism: love getting away from Oenone.
All rabbits (except the cottontail rabbits) live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares (and cottontail rabbits) live in simple nests above the ground
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare

Dürer was at least at some time (1502) in his life a hare expert:

Image


.... As I said, I've my doubts about the young humanism in Germany.

Well, we had in Nurremberg the Danhauser project, which is said to have been done c. 1493 till 1497. Then the project was stopped (possibly cause of disappearing or missing German interest in their new empress ... ?). It's said that they had collected about 350 engravings for a book about "Roman Triumph" and figures of the Mantegna Tarocchi were part of it. About 50 pictures are said to have survived.

Image


I didn't get further details in earlier attempts, maybe the research situation has improved by advance in the web.

http://trionfi.com/0/m/10/

A part of Dürers studies to the Mantegna Tarocchi motifs (1495) might have been part of the project, the second part is given to 1505. In the report about the Danhauser project a participation of Dürer isn't mentioned, but if we look at the situation (Dürer as a pupil of Wolgemut), it seems plausible, that Dürers Italy-journey was used in more than in one way and that there was likely a least a vague relatin. Dürer went to Italy in autumn 1494, short after his wedding, cause a plague was approaching Nuremberg.

****************

Btw. ... we had once (2009) this discussion ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t= ... ght=zucker

... with a comparison of these two pictures:

Image


Image

Leber Tarocchi card (modern reproduction)

... both related to a Zucker article.

Well, an extravagant helmet as in ...

Image


.. and ...



... and in Sola-Busca Tarocchi occasionally.

Image


**************

Btw. ... this work of Dürer is given to 1495.

Image

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/mel/ ... rtune.html

called "kleines Glück" = "minor Fortune", an expression for an element in the 16 figure divination of the geomancy.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

22
Well, here we have the Theogony by Hesiod:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm

[Call for the Muses]

(ll. 104-115) Hail, children of Zeus! Grant lovely song and celebrate the holy race of the deathless gods who are for ever, those that were born of Earth and starry Heaven and gloomy Night and them that briny Sea did rear. Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them, givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they shared their honours amongst them, and also how at the first they took many-folded Olympus. These things declare to me from the beginning, ye Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them first came to be.

[Story of CHAOS and EARTH]

(ll. 116-138) Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all (4) the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether (5) and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.


.... [so finally the 12 Titans were born: 6 male and 6 female]

[Now: 3 Cyclopes]

(ll. 139-146) And again, she bare the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit, Brontes, and Steropes and stubborn-hearted Arges (6), who gave Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else they were like the gods, but one eye only was set in the midst of their fore-heads. And they were surnamed Cyclopes (Orb-eyed) because one orbed eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and might and craft were in their works.

[Now: 3 guys with 100 arms]

(ll. 147-163) And again, three other sons were born of Earth and Heaven, great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus and Briareos and Gyes, presumptuous children. From their shoulders sprang an hundred arms, not to be approached, and each had fifty heads upon his shoulders on their strong limbs, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms. For of all the children that were born of Earth and Heaven, these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first.

.... [... so finally we have the 12 Titans + 3 Cyclopes + 3 with 100 arms = 18 ELEMENTS]

[EARTH becomes angry]

And he used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light: and Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Earth groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons. And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart:

(ll. 164-166) `My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.'

(ll. 167-169) So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Cronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother:

(ll. 170-172) `Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.'

(ll. 173-175) So he said: and vast Earth rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.

(ll. 176-206) And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her (7).

[The children in action]

Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes ...



... and the great Giants with gleaming armour, ...

[I've read somewhere, that this had been 24]

... holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae ...

[Meliae = Ash tree nymphs, I think, this were meant as 18

... all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden.

[Birth of Aphrodite]

First she drew near holy Cythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Cyprus, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, and the foam-born goddess and rich-crowned Cytherea, because she grew amid the foam, and Cytherea because she reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born in billowy Cyprus, and Philommedes (9) because sprang from the members. And with her went Eros, and comely Desire followed her at her birth at the first and as she went into the assembly of the gods. This honour she has from the beginning, and this is the portion allotted to her amongst men and undying gods, -- the whisperings of maidens and smiles and deceits with sweet delight and love and graciousness.


So we have ...

12 Titans
3 Cyclopes
3 men with 100 arms
---
18 ELEMENTS

+ 3 Erinyes
+ 24 Gigantes
+ 18 Meliai
+ 1 Aphrodite
-----
total 64

That's the somewhat complicated "birth of Love" between Heaven and Earth, the Venus Urania

Oenone is not mentioned.

The only female group of 3 women would be the 3 Erinyes ... Wikipedia says:

When the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam. According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unnameable" who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("vengeful destruction"). Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes; in Canto IX of the Inferno they confront the poets at the gates of the city of Dis. The goddesses were servants of Hades and Persephone in the underworld where they watched criminals being tortured in the Dungeons of the Damned. The waists of the Erinyes were entwined with serpents (compare Gorgon) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific. Other depictions show them with the wings of a bat or bird and the body of a dog. When in human form, they are said to appear as mourners in long black robes or maidens in short skirts and boots.


Well, we see - my opinion - a half, "disappearing" dog (not a hare or a rabbit). The women are NOT as usually described "very negative", but more friendly and the whole scene is more friendly as hateful. Well, LOVE transforms (Venus is born, so actually the function of necessary revenge is overcome) ...

Image


The ash-tree has in Northern mythology a very important function as Yggdrasil, the World-ash-tree, a worthy relative to Hesiod's Theogony and the old Greek model of a world genesis. In detail there is a Northern mythology, according which Ask and Embla ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla
... were the first humans (a sort of Adam and Eve), generated from trees, Ask from the ash-tree and Embla from the Elm-tree. The wood of both trees were used for bows and arrows, perhaps this plays a role for this mythological identification.
It's naturally not obvious to me, if Dürer might have known anything about Northern mythology or not.

But the Erinyes are in mythology far more near to the figure of Venus Urania than Oenone, I would assume.

Assuming, that the picture might have had its relevance in 1516, Maximilian might have had the intention to present his current military action in Italy as a peace mission, calming down old revenge-feelings with universal love felt by the imperial heart.
It didn't work.
Verona and Milan were lost.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

23
Huck wrote
mikeh wrote:Huck: a rabbit going in its hole would fit the overall symbolism: love getting away from Oenone.
All rabbits (except the cottontail rabbits) live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares (and cottontail rabbits) live in simple nests above the ground
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare
Hares can still go in holes to hide, even if the holes aren't their nests. Dogs don't have nests underground, either.

Later you connect your dog with the Erinyes, as having dog-bodies. However it is not an Erinye going into the hole, and none of the Erinyes that we see have dog-bodies.

Looking through Strauss's book, I see that several drawings have erroneous dates written on them, sometimes ludicrously so, such as a rather primitive one of 1493 with the date "1508" on it, but "1493" on the verso (p. 136).

Zucker gives the drawing of the old lady with the weird hat to the SB-master. In his commentary to another SB-master engraving, "Blind Beggar with a Dog" (p. 167: do you have that one?) he notes the similarity between it and the Leber Saturn (as well as to the SB Five of Cups; the engraving would be derived from the "Mantegna" Misero and various Fool cards). Zucker (p. 170) compares the old lady's hat with that of the SB Four of Batons and other SB helmets. For the engraving I posted of the two women with the apple, he notes the similarity to the SB Queens, especially Cups and Batons (p. 172). We could probably go on all day. In his commentary to the old lady, he says (p. 170)
Comparable heads or busts with fanciful helmets are common in Renaissance art, appearing, for example, in early Florentine engravings (TIB 2405.039-.041), in contemporary niello prints (Hind 1936, nos. 248-51), and in drawings by Marco Zoppo (Ruhmer 1966, figs. 112-34) and Leonardo da Vinci.
TIB = The Illustrated Bartsch.

Strauss includes 9 drawings of the E series "Mantegna" for Duerer's year 1494: Primum Mobile, Philosophy, Mercury, Melpomene, Calliope, Euterpe, Thalia, Jupiter, Prudence, Hope; then for 1495 he has 11 more: Faith, Rhetoric, Justice, Urania, Cosmos, "The Genius of Time," Logic, Apollo, the Pope, the Doge, and "Knight and Page". I haven't looked in later volumes. Vol. 1 just goes up to 1499. Of these, Philosophy, Mercury, Caliope, and Jupiter (all 1494) have their names written out below. These 20 are the same as the ones you have. So none in 1505.

Strauss has a drawing of a young lady on a sphere given for 1495, although dated 1498. It is called "Fortune in a Niche," as she is indeed in a niche. Strauss comments, "The numerals appear to be superimposed on an earlier inscription" and "The watermark of the paper also points to a date of circa 1495." He says that the drawing "served as a model for Duerer's engraving 'Dream of the Doctor' (B. 76, SE 22)." SE is Strauss's earlier book, 1972; B is Bartsch, Le Peintre-Graveur. Here is the only work I see corresponding to that title on the Web: http://biozhena.files.wordpress.com/201 ... .jpg?w=303. She isn't standing on the sphere. The work you showed, "Das Kleine Glueck,' is much closer to "Fortune in a Niche", but Strauss doesn't mention anything with that title, or even "Fortuna." According to one website, it is in his 1972 book, p. 14, but I haven't checked.

Duerer might have copied the idea of a girl on a sphere as Fortune from a drawing of the school of Mantegna that I've posted a couple of times, showing a youth reaching out to such a lady while being restrained by a lady on a cube.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

24
mikeh wrote: Hares can still go in holes to hide, even if the holes aren't their nests. Dogs don't have nests underground, either.
... :-) ... Hares are quick. That's their defense strategy.
Later you connect your dog with the Erinyes, as having dog-bodies. However it is not an Erinye going into the hole, and none of the Erinyes that we see have dog-bodies.
They also have no bat-wings. Nonetheless they're closer to Venus Urania than Oenone.
The disappearing dog is a mythical element in the disappearance of the wife of Priamos. She transmutes in a dog. I think, that's not the only occurrence with the disappearing dog. It was also used as a black disappearing dog in the more modern death myths of Pope Alexander VI. and Agrippa of Nettesheim.

Venus was accompanied usually by other "3 women", the Charites, which somehow remember the mythological earlier connected 3 women, the Erinyes. Well, the Charites are clearly "more positive".

Image


One might interpret, that the appearance of Aphrodite transmutes the world from a system based on revenge and punishment to a world reigned by love instead.

One of these Dürer-Charites has a helmet and shows her (earlier) military aspect. Interpreting the names of the Erinyes, (Wikipedia: " Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unnameable" who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("vengeful destruction"), then it seems, that the left woman might be the "grudging" Megaera, in the middle the "unnameable" Alecto and the right position has Tisiphone with its "vengeful destruction", for which she needs the military aspect indicated by the helmet.

It's interesting, that this assumed Tisiphone rather obviously is indicated as a fountain nymph ...



The river isn't so clearly seen at the older Ferrarese picture ...

Image


... if there is one, then this is at the bottom of the picture in the foreground and the nymph isn't the fountain nymph, but at the bank of the river or above it.

Dürer's nymph looks, as if she attempts, if her soup plate might be used as an UFO swimming at the water and how long this will work. The nymph in the middle smiles about the childish game ...
Duerer might have copied the idea of a girl on a sphere as Fortune from a drawing of the school of Mantegna that I've posted a couple of times, showing a youth reaching out to such a lady while being restrained by a lady on a cube.
The figure isn't so unusual. More interesting is the address "Kleines Glück", which appears as a category in divnation systems. Fortune with wheel often accompanied lot books. Calling her "kleines Glück" might indicate that Virtue might have been seen as the "greater luck" (greater luck is also an element of divination systems).

***************

... well, let's see, how long this UFO swims .... :-)
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

25
I appreciate your point about "kleines Glueck".

In the Duerer, the wavy lines probably indicate a spring, as there are no such lines to the left of the girl. Nymphs are associated with springs. Oenone is apparently called a "fountain nymph" ("Pegasis" in Ovid; Hesiod says "Pegasus", as in the winged horse, comes from "pege" meaning "spring or well"--see Wikipedia on "Pegasus"--which I hypothesize might be the source of the winged helmet); the word "fontana" in Italian means both "fountain" and "spring" (http://www.wordreference.com/iten/fontana). Oenone could be associated with either a spring or a river, as her father was a river god. The Ferrarese engraving more likely has a river (at the bottom). What springs or rivers are your Erinyes associated with?

The sources about Oenone just associate her with Venus, not Venus sprung from Uranos specifically. For her birth, you have to go elsewhere, either in the same author, or some other author. Two of the Oenone sources, Ovid and Quintus Smyrnaeus, have Venus born from the foam, i.e. Uranos (http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AphroditeMyths.html#Birth). The majority of other classical sources also have her born from the sea. In Renaissance art of the time, the birth of Venus was typically depicted that way (famously, by Botticelli)--and again, just as Venus, not "Venus Uranos". Naturally one would assume that the Venus from whom Oenone suffers was born that way.

I have pointed out other engravings of the time suggesting Oenone, one by the SB-master himself, with identical headdress and the fateful apple, plus two by Raimondo from Raphael (died 1520). What is there, of this time, comparable for the Erinyes?

Also, Oenone is associated with divination. I don't see where the Erinyes, either as avengers or as Eumenides, have that association, which is indicated by the basin, your UFO (unidentified floating object?).

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

26
... I wrote a longer post, but firefox crashed and with it the post. So it's gone ... :-)

In summary, cause I'll don't like to repeat it for the moment:

Maximilian died January 1519. In this year Duerer produced a St. Anthony with Trento-Innsbruck scene. (Strauss gives the information).

In 1506 Duerer also produced the Trento-Innsbruck scene, then with Pope and Emperor and himself. Near to him the Trento-Innsbruck scene. This was a German-Venetian commission, which is quite accurately datable to 1506 and before the pope took Bologna. (Strauss gives the information).

So we have 4 occurrences related to the Trento-Innsbruck-scene, 3 of them related clearly to the emperor. The first on his first journey to Italy, a time in which Innsbruck was clearly related to the emperor. The second 1506 (second journey to Italy), and the 3rd in the St. Anthony (1519).

The fact lets assume, that the fourth also was related to the emperor, and likely more in 1516 than earlier (cause Dürer had commissions by the emperor since 1512, and not before).

1519

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... y-1519.jpg
Saint Anthony the Great, (St. Anthony of Egypt, of the Desert, etc.), is regarded as the first Christian hermit. He was a favorite subject for artists. In this engraving, Dürer has juxtaposed the Saint with his cross and bible with the urban world he left behind him. Formally, the design of the monk echoes that of the city, suggesting that the hermit is a world unto himself. The cityscape itself is modeled on an earlier work by Dürer, the drawing Pupila Augusta. It is also seen in the background of his 1506 Feast of the Rose Garlands.
1506 / detail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Rosary

1506 / complete
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

27
I am not sure where your observations about the different uses of the same background are leading.

If it has to do with the peace that Venus brings (since the Emperor and the Pope are political figures, often at odds), well, yes, that was my earlier interpretation, before I realized that the middle foreground person was female. If female, I don't know who it would be, if it's a scene representing Venus's peace. If it's Mars, then we do have a scene of peace, and in that case the girl with the UFO is Venus. But she doesn't look much like Venus to me; I tend to reject that interpretation.

We haven't talked much about the ox's skull on the basket, which is also there in the SB-master's engraving. If it's a scene of Venus's peace, then the skull has the significance I attached to it earlier: labor and the peace that is brought about by labor. If the lady next to it is Oenone, however, that interpretation won't work, since what she is seeing in the basin is Paris's abduction of Helen and the Trojan War. So in that case the skull signifies death, just in virtue of being a skull.

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

28
mikeh wrote:I am not sure where your observations about the different uses of the same background are leading.
I think, it was a design indicating "Emperor's Maximilian matters" in 2 cases (1506 and 1519) and so likely also in 1516. As "Pupila Augusta" indicates the emperor ... in German interpretation.
If it has to do with the peace that Venus brings (since the Emperor and the Pope are political figures, often at odds), well, yes, that was my earlier interpretation, before I realized that the middle foreground person was female. If female, I don't know who it would be, if it's a scene representing Venus's peace. If it's Mars, then we do have a scene of peace, and in that case the girl with the UFO is Venus. But she doesn't look much like Venus to me; I tend to reject that interpretation.
It's not impossible, that an epigram existed, that as a theme connected an exchange of some words between Oenone and Hera and Athena. Hera and Athena and Venus were often presented as naked women in the Paris scene.
So they might be naked here, too, without any attribute, and so raising the discussion, who they might be.

Oenone got an attribute, the helmet, if the Ufo isn't one. The helmet was also used by Hercules in the fight between Virtue and Vice by Hercules, and by a central soldier in the Flagellation (both from Dürer, as Strauss observed).
The woman with the 3 breasts + apple (Sola-Busca artist painting ?) might be Eris, and Oenone a prolongation of Eris-influence ... then it makes sense.

Eris has an indirect connection to the Horae, which for another interpretation were the presented 3 figures (Strauss). Eris with her daughter Ate has also an influence on the birth of Herdules.

Eris is the twin sister of Ares (vocal exchange). Another vocal exchange leads to Eros (uniting) ... like Eris (splitting) an old world creator.
Ares is lover of Aphrodite, Eros is her son.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Duerer and the Master of the Sola Busca Tarocchi

29
I like the idea of Eris. As Ares' twin and goddess of strife, she would wear a warrior's helmet. As Ross pointed out in relation to the BAR Chariot card, winged helmets were shown as worn by warriors in ceremonial processions. I can’t find any verbal source giving her such a helmet, but it would seem that in Renaissance artintings of Eris, she has something like such a helmet, e.g.

Image


Eris would be the lady on the far left. I don't know who did this painting; the website says its from the 1400s but gives no reference (http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Fi-Go/F ... ology.html).

Here's another, "The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis" by Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651), although it might just be messed up hair, as in other Baroque paintings of her that are on the web (http://worldofmythology.tumblr.com/post ... goddess-of):
Image


Eris would also do as a secondary meaning for the other two, as the girl next to the stream with her finger in the basin--stirring up trouble, in that case, rather than foreseeing trouble. Or, as you say, she inherits the helmet from its previous owner, first in the work of the same artist, and then to her "tracer" (Duerer).
cron