The black andromeda.pdf - camberwellmastudents

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BLACK ANDROMEDA 15 praised'.79 He was strongly influenced by Diepenbeeck's designs, as is evident in the plates to his mythological compendium, the Iconologia deorum of 1680.80 So too was Joachim's nephew and pupil Johann Joachim von Sandrart (1655-98) in his illustrated paraphrase of the first seven books of the Metamorphoses, published posthumously in the year of his death.81 For his representation of the rescue of Andromeda Johann Joachim adapted Diepenbeeck's figure-white cupid, white gulls and all-even giving her a swathe of white drapery and a distinctly more Indian hairstyle (P1. 3a).82 Ironically this means that she now conforms very imperfectly to Ovid's description in the Metamorphoses, the text Sandrart was supposedly illustrating: her pose hardly recalls that of an ancient statue and her hair, tightly drawn into a chignon, has no chance to flutter free. Sandrart's interpretation does, however, embody the main features of Ovid's composite Andromeda, the dark-skinned Ethiopian who looks good in white and was brought by Perseus from the 'black Indians'.83 As far as I am aware no artist followed Diepenbeeck and Johann Joachim von Sandrart in depicting Andromeda as black. One deterrent was presumably Marolles's perplexed and misleading commentary on Diepenbeeck's engraving; another Sandrart's failure to provide any explanation in his text for his Indian princess-something that might have seemed especially important since he was illustrating the Metamorphoses. But Ovid himself was largely to blame. There is, it is true, at least one depiction of a black Andromeda in an illustrated Ovid manuscript: a fifteenth-century Florentine copy of the Ars amandi (P1. 4c), brought to my attention by Ursula Sdunnus.84 Here the white dress of book three has been disregarded -in any case Andromeda may have worn it only after her rescue85-to reveal the princess as entirely dark-skinned; she sits calmly waiting for Perseus to untie her 79 J. von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie, Nuremberg 1675, ii, 3, p. 319: 'Sonderlich aber das fiirtrefliche grosse Werk der 50. Kupfer die Cornelius Blomart und Mattham gestochen unter dem Titul des Cabinets Favereaw, K6niglichen Rahts zu Paris, so Anno 1663 ausgegangen genannt Tableux du Temple des Muses, welches allein mfchtig genug ist seine grosse Wiirden und sinnreichen Geist ffir aller Welt zu preisen'. Cf. Steadman (as in n. 70), p. xii, where the text is partially reproduced (with some misprints). 80 See J. von Sandrart, Iconologia deorum oder really India. Cf. above, p. Abbildung der G6tter, Nuremberg 1680. Apart from the cases of whole plates based on illustrations from the Temple des Muses, such as pl. A which virtually copies Diepenbeeck's Chaos (see above, n. 74), there are borrowings of detail, such as the Glaucus (pl. H, i) taken from Marolles (as in n. 67), pl. 28. 81 J. J. von Sandrart, P Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphosis oder Sinn-reicher Gedichte von Verwandlungen. Erster Theil, enthaltend die sieben ersten Biicher, Nuremberg 1698. Cf., for example, Diepenbeeck's Chaos (above, n. 74) and the corresponding plate in Sandrart (pl. 2); also the two versions of the Flood: Marolles (as in n. 67), pl. 3; Sandrart, pl. 6. 82 Sandrart, Metamorphosis (as in n. 81), pl. 42 to pp. 77-79. 83 It also reflects the conclusions found, for example, in Renaissance commentaries to Ovid that Ethiopia was 10 and n. 54; also p. 2 and n. 10. Lorenzo Valla had argued this (Elegantiae, edn Lyons 1544, p. 320); and even if there was still the question of the location of Joppa, which was presumed to be the biblical town, in his wide-ranging study of ancient religion and mythology, De origine et progressu idolatriae, Gerard Vossius concluded that the Greeks used the terms Indian and Ethiopian vaguely to refer to peoples to the east as well as south of the Mediterranean. He takes it that the Joppa where the chains said to have bound Andromeda were displayed in antiquity and from which the bones of her sea monster had been brought to Rome was the city in Phoenicia (G. J. Vossius, De theologia gentili etc...., edn Amsterdam 1700, p. 84, referring to Pliny, as in n. 53, and Strabo, xvi, 2.28). 84 Ovid, De arte amandi etc., MS sold London, Sotheby's, 22 June 1982, lot 56, pp. 66-69; the colour plate on p. 67 illustrates the whole page, which appears opposite the opening page of the text of the Art of Love. See also Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, ed. A. Garzelli, Florence 1985, ii, p. 270, fig. 488, where the folio number is given as 66v; according to the Sotheby's catalogue this should be 1V. The illustration has been attributed to the Master of the Hamilton Xenophon; for this master (active 1470-80) see Garzelli, ed. (as above), i, pp. 157-62. 85 See above, n. 47.
16 ELIZABETH McGRATH bonds. But in general, in Ovidian contexts as elsewhere, the marble statue of the Metamorphoses effectively bleached Andromeda's colour away. The famous adaptation of the story to the episode of Roger and Angelica demonstrates this very well. For Ariosto's statue becomes one of alabaster or some brilliant marble ('statua finta o d'alabastro o d'altri marmi illustri').86 Adherence to to the 'canonical' text of the Metamorphoses as much as to prevailing norms of beauty seems to have ensured the suppression of the black Andromeda. Even for modern scholars she hardly exists. Thus Petrarch's Elizabethan translator Lord Morley has been censured for misunderstanding the poet's words-the lines that set Pacheco off on his painful search for historical truth. But, even if he took three times as long as Petrarch to make his point, Lord Morley's translation in this respect at least had it right. For he wrote: Parseus was one, and fayne I woulde desyre Howe Andromeda dyd hyr selfe so attyre That although she blacke were (pardie), Borne in Ethiope, that whote countrie, Yet her fayre eyne and her cryspe heare This Parseus harte in love so dyd steare That as his love the virgin dyd he take, And never after dyd that mayde forsake.87 WARBURG INSTITUTE 86 Ariosto, Orlando furioso, x, 96. For the importance of the reference to marble or alabaster in certain artistic contexts see Scott (as in n. 42), esp. pp. 250-52. 87 This, it is claimed, is a misreading of Petrarch, who in Trionfi, ii, 144, is taken to talk of 'a maiden with lovely dark eyes and dark hair', punctuating the line: 'vergine, bruna i begli occhi e le chiome'. See Lord Morley's 'Tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke', ed. D. D. Carnicelli, Cambridge, Mass. 1971, p. 92; commentary, p. 193. This reading of Petrarch's text presumably derives from the analogy with the lines in Horace about Lycus, made in the 18th-century edition cited above (see n. 59). Curiously, although commentators on Petrarch sometimes refer to the Heroides, they do not mention the Art of Love, which was surely an important source for Petrarch's Trionfi.
Page 1 and 2: The Black Andromeda Author(s): Eliz
Page 3 and 4: 2 ELIZABETH McGRATH Underdowne's fr
Page 5 and 6: 4 ELIZABETH McGRATH Heliodorus's st
Page 7 and 8: 6 ELIZABETH McGRATH Now we see this
Page 9 and 10: 8 ELIZABETH McGRATH dark-skinned an
Page 11 and 12: 10 ELIZABETH McGRATH Ovid clearly r
Page 13 and 14: 12 ELIZABETH McGRATH Yet we have Pi
Page 15: 14 ELIZABETH McGRATH of a black Afr
Page 19 and 20: 18 ELIZABETH McGRATH Soneto La virg
Page 21 and 22: Plate 2 BLACK ANDROMEDA ijA0. 6'A .
Page 23: Plate 4 BLACK ANDROMEDA I~_I~-.-LZ

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