Paolo Fiammingo, Landscape with a Scene of Enchantment

A maze or rocky grotto looks out over a cloudy mountainous landscape of woodland, hilltop towns and a silvery meandering river. A turbaned man plays a lute by torchlight as three other men embrace bizarre hybrid women. One woman, reclining on the ground, has a serpent for a tail. Another, drinking at the table, has the face of a pig. A third, pointing into the distance, has the head of a reptile. The men appear unaware of or unconcerned by the women’s peculiar appearance. Two men, emerging from the maze, embrace one another, while a naked bearded old man lies sleeping near the edge of a cliff. At the top of the picture another naked figure seems to be sliding down a cliff face into the clouds. The very specific and strange elements in this scene suggest that it illustrates a particular story, although we do not know which.

Paolo Flamingo’s Landscape with the Expulsion of the Harpies illustrates a scene from the Argonautica, an epic romance written by Apollonius Rhodius in the third century BC. The hybrid women in this painting could be beastly followers of Circe also described in the Argonautica (Book IV) and the sleeping man may be Odysseus, but the scene illustrated is far from clear.

Both canvases may once have been part of a series of perhaps six or more paintings. They are very large – over two metres wide and almost two metres high – and it is likely that they were made to decorate an upper wall between pilasters in a Venetian palace, possibly the Palazzo Vendramin on the Grand Canal. Such a series would have decorated a whole room, like wallpaper today. It was usual elsewhere in Italy to paint directly on the plaster when decorating walls, a technique known as fresco. However, fresco was not suited to the damp climate of Venice, and so large canvases like these were painted instead. These pictures were painted hastily using only a limited range of colours, which may be because they were intended as interior decoration rather than as gallery pictures.

The sky has turned a greenish-grey due to the discolouration of the blue pigment smalt and some green foliage has darkened. Hidden elements (such as the snake-woman’s right arm) have reappeared as the paint has become increasingly transparent. The paint may have been prepared hastily or without proper care. The hairstyle of the snake-tailed woman became popular around 1590, suggesting that these canvases were painted late in Paolo Fiammingo’s career. His daring freedom here in painting effects of aerial perspective] – the way the landscape seems to dissolve into the distance – also demonstrates the confidence of a very experienced artist.