Essays

The Judgement of Paris

For the first assigned cultural encounter, my brother and I went to the Ringling Brothers Museum. There they had many gorgeous paintings, but one of my absolute favourites was "The Judgement of Paris". This is a painting from an old Greek myth about a boy named Paris, and three goddesses. The artist of this painting is Ludovico David. 

Ludovico David was born in Lugano on June 13th, 1648. He studied for a while in Milan, under the Cavalier Cairo and Ercole Procaccin, and in Venice. After that, he went to Bologna and for a short period of time learned from Carlo Cignani. He painted for different churches and covenants in Milan and Venice. He was also known for painting portraits of the upper class of his time. In 1686 he moved to Rome where he lived until he died in 1728.

A lot of David's paintings have been lost since then, but "The Judgement of Paris" is a painting he is fairly well known for. He painted "The Judgement of Paris" in 1690, playing with lots of different colours and ideas, in some places painting it like other paintings, and in some places more his own. 

"The Judgement of Paris" is a magnificent oil painting that really captures a viewer. Unlike many versions of this painting, David decided to make the goddesses a little more modest. Yes, Hera and Aphrodite were still nude but they were all relatively well covered, and Athena was still in armor. Something he had painted, the cherub, I noticed immediately draws the eyes of the viewers, the way he is looking at everyone as he keeps Aphrodite covered with the rippling white cloth, he almost looks like he is a little cocky thinking, Yeah, Aphrodite is going to win. It is so obvious.

Even if that happy little cherub didn't look so certain, you can kind of tell that Aphrodite is going to win because Hermes is pointing to her as he and Paris whisper back and forth. You can very nearly picture him warning Paris, "If you choose her, you are going to have two really frightening goddesses after you" But it is fairly obvious that Paris already knows it, because he has this very uncomfortable, almost scared look on his face so you know that he just does not want to be stuck in that situation.

I haven't been fortunate enough to see many other paintings by Ludovico David, but the ones I did see were significantly darker than this picture. The colors were much more dull and had a somewhat depressing feeling to them, so I was really glad that "The Judgement of Paris" was more of this bright, colorful, nearly happy moment. After all, this is the scene right before Paris chooses a goddess, so each one of them actually is happy, thinking that they are certainly going to win because each one believes that they are in fact the most beautiful of the three. There were some cold colors that mixed nicely with the warmer bursts that fill your mind. The artist wants his viewers to look at the painting and be in awe of it's beauty, and elegance. The way he can make the characters really feel like immortal beings, he can make these goddesses more beautiful than any woman you see without actually even seeing more than a bad view of their heads and a good portion of their backs.

The cloth wrapped around the characters is drawn gently over them to hide them in the most beautiful way possible. The golden apple in the painting is placed lightly in Paris' hand, not in any hurry to hand it to one goddess and be despised by the other two. No, Paris isn't in a hurry, but I'd be willing to bet that if anyone in this painting was, it would be Hermes. Paris was chosen by Zeus to choose which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful, and Zeus was the type who would love to cause trouble. If I were gonna question why Hermes was there, my best answer would be that Zeus sent him.

David uses chiaroscuro in many places in this painting, that really help with the depth of different elements in the painting. On Aphrodite's side you can easily see the dark shadow clash onto her paper white skin like an ocean on the shore. The darkness fills the spaces in between the three women, leaving a vast emptiness that lasts mere seconds before getting back to the color that runs along the painting.

I think that, maybe, the reason David has these women still sort of in a pose, is not just to attract the viewers to the painting, but possibly also to help us look at them from Paris' point of view. We see these three beautiful goddesses, all wanting to be the most beautiful and we, like Paris, choose one as the victor.

The moment I saw this painting, I was immediately drawn to it. I am a mythology buff, I guess, and before I even looked at the plaque I turned to my brother and said "That's Paris with the golden apple!" I practically ran to it, dragging him along with me. The story behind it was always one of my favorites so it made this painting more important to me than the stories I had no history with. The story wasn't the only thing that made me want to go stare at it though. You can like a story but still not enjoy a painting of it. No, I saw how the intensity of the colors and the flow of the curves made it come to life. The characters were all so perfectly captured that I fell in love with this painting instantly.  

-  26 February, 2015