The Lovers
Posted: 12 Nov 2009, 22:01
A thread to discuss the iconography of The Lovers
also:A vigorous and plastic Hercules is depicted with two women flanking him, who represent the opposite destinies which the life could reserve him: on the left the Virtue is calling him to the hardest path leading to glory through hardship, while the second, the Pleasure, the easier path, is enticing him to the vice.
I'm not sure what you mean? As in which is Vice (pleasure) and which is Virtue?? Vice on the left and Virtue on the right. Or are you asking something else?Pen wrote:Do you know which is the right way round for painting 3/5?
Well, unless I'm really losing it, which is entirely possible, #3 and #5 are the same painting flipped horizontally....robert wrote:I'm not sure what you mean? As in which is Vice (pleasure) and which is Virtue?? Vice on the left and Virtue on the right. Or are you asking something else?Pen wrote:Do you know which is the right way round for painting 3/5?
I'm glad you like the images. I can find them with cupid beside Vice/Pleasure... but not floating above as seen in Tarot de Marseille. Oddly, that is more typical in the Judgement of Paris images, which I'll post a couple of images in a few moments.
The famous myth of the Judgement of Paris always comes to mind when I see the Tarot de Marseille lovers. It often has Cupid above, and Paris making a choice between Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena. It's easy for me to imagine Aphrodite as representing Pleasure and Passion, and Athena as Virtue and Courage, but there isn't a third choice depicted on tarot cards to be Hera, so it's not a good match. Nevertheless, it is worth considering as an influence.Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (parents of Achilles). However, Eris, goddess of discord, was uninvited. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at the celebration, where she threw a golden apple (the Apple of Discord) into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστῃ ("for the fairest one").
Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually Zeus, reluctant to favour any claim himself, declared that Paris, a Phrygian mortal, would judge their cases..
Thus it happened that, with Hermes as their guide, all three of the candidates appeared to Paris on Mount Ida, in the climactic moment that is the crux of the tale. After bathing in the spring of Ida, each attempted with her powers to bribe Paris; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song..., offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman...
AH! You're right!!! Silly me. I even misunderstood which image you meant. Well then. Hmmm. Do I clean this up ore leave it as an embarrassment to myself?Pen wrote:Well, unless I'm really losing it, which is entirely possible, #3 and #5 are the same painting flipped horizontally....robert wrote:I'm not sure what you mean? As in which is Vice (pleasure) and which is Virtue?? Vice on the left and Virtue on the right. Or are you asking something else?Pen wrote:Do you know which is the right way round for painting 3/5?
I'm glad you like the images. I can find them with cupid beside Vice/Pleasure... but not floating above as seen in Tarot de Marseille. Oddly, that is more typical in the Judgement of Paris images, which I'll post a couple of images in a few moments.
Pen
Above, I've posted a painting with Cupid on top and a man with two women below, the man obviously choosing the woman on the right. I can't make out wreaths on any but the man. But it's not a "Hercules"; it's a "Bacchus and Ariadne." I strongly suspect that its composition was influenced by the tarot card, and not the other way around, as I know of no precedents in mythological art. It may reflect a common way of seeing the card. The left-hand lady in the painting is a Bacchante. If so, she would normally be wearing a wreath of leaves (in this case it could be ivy), except that here the artist wanted to be original. I am not sure if she is a witness to a betrothal, or a priestess officiating a marriage. If the latter, painting and card are related to those cards that had a priest instead of Cupid, and also to the Schoen horoscope, which used that image for its sixth House, the House of Marriage (below, with the Vieville). So in the Marseille card, the woman on the left would be that same priestess, perhaps related to the Popess.I'm glad you like the images. I can find them with cupid beside Vice/Pleasure... but not floating above as seen in Tarot de Marseille.
Only the vain and proud--like the Puritans satirized in Shakespeare's plays, and their continental equivalents--delude themselves into thinking they possess Virtue. It is the path toward virtue that is a delight, Montaigne insists, and thus not the wearisome climb that such thinkers portray it.Those who proceed to teach us that the questing after virtue is rugged and wearisome whereas to possess her is delight can only mean that she always lacks delight. (For what human means have ever brought anyone to the joy of possessing her.) Even the most perfect of men have been satisfied with aspiring to her--not possessing her but drawing near to her. ([/i]Essays[/i], a Selection, p. 18f, in Google Books)