Apollo With Music Allegory And Zodiac Signs

Mid 18th century

Apollo with music allegory and zodiac signs

Oil on canvas, cm 62 x 48

With gold frame of the time, cm 70 x 57

Born in France as an evolution of the late Baroque, rococo was a style characterized by the exuberant manifestation of aristocratic life. After the glories of the Baroque setting, the preference of artists and clients turned towards the depiction of the lightness of aristocratic life, stigmatizing it with a harmonious linearism and fairy-tale colors, in clear opposition to the bright and charged tones of the previous period. Even the favorite subjects changed, turning from the double battle and religious scenes to sentimental images and related to the romanesque life. The present painting, while respecting the formalism of this particular period, is unique in its kind because of the subject represented: a mythological crasi between classical zodiac and music allegory. Neoclassicism, marked by the melodic and archaeological revival of the models of the ancient Greeks and Romans, soon outclassed the Rococo: the present painting collects the distant mirage, when still theorists had not formulated or written around this way. The protoneoclassical character of the work therefore recognizes it as an intellectual exercise by a cultured admirer or artist, fascinated by the intertwining of meaning typical of ancient myths.Apollo, dressed in a voluminous coral robe, sits at the command of the composition. The golden cithare that it supports and the brightness that radiates from its person suggests its leading role of the muses. These, protectors of the arts, accompany him with the typical attributes of music: mandolin, tambourine, wind and percussion instruments, while some playful genietti animate the remaining clouds. Apollo can also be recognized as the head of astrology, as son of Zeus and twin of Artemis, personification of the Sun and therefore of the movement of the stars.

The present painting essentially sums up the various attitudes of Apollo: god of music, moving the chariot of the Sun and guide of the muses.