She made him the hero. This was her reward...

Описание: Angelica Kauffmann was navigating an art world full of men in the late 1700s, but she couldn’t stop painting the same story over and over: Ariadne, a Greek princess who falls for the hero Theseus.

The myth goes like this: Ariadne helps Theseus escape the Minotaur’s labyrinth, and he promises to marry her and take her to Athens. They sail away together to the island of Naxos. Then… well, things turn out differently than planned. That’s where Kauffmann sets her paintings.

She painted this version in 1774 and showed it at the Royal Academy alongside two other works. She painted Ariadne again before 1782. And again in 1794.

What was it about this princess that Kauffmann couldn’t let go of? Maybe being one of only two women who founded the Royal Academy gave her some perspective on what it feels like when things don’t go the way you were promised.

The first time I saw this painting, what really caught my attention was Ariadne’s position, but above all, her face. It shows disappointment and, more than anything, sadness, plus something else I can’t quite figure out... Kauffmann captures in this and her other version that feeling you get when your heart is broken. I think that’s what makes it such an interesting painting.

The myth of Ariadne and Theseus (like everything in Greek mythology) has many variants, but this is the one I personally like the most, and I feel it gives her a good ending after what the poor woman went through. This painting is currently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in the United States.


#arthistory #greekmythology #oilpainting #history #artlovers