Catalogue of the exhibition The Unboundedly Female as depicted in Baroque and Ancient Art:18.11.1999 - 06.02.2000
The idyllic landscapes in Baroque paintings are populated by goddesses and nymphs from Greek antiquity, who were originally perceived as wild and powerful deities. However, in the pictures on display, they resemble dainty ladies at Baroque courts depicted as gentle, beautiful, passive and noble creatures. These depictions correspond to the conception of the female in the Baroque era. Ancient cultures identified femininity with the ability to comprehend diverse realities (worlds of thought, tradition, states of mind) and to cross the borders between them. Ecstasy was the most important element of the Dionysian cult, for it was in the state of ecstasy that borders could most easily be crossed. Another inalienably female characteristic is analytical thinking. Hence femininity is as much part of ecstatic prophecy and passionate instincts - personified by Nymphs and frenzied Maenads - as it is of exact calculation and clear reasoning - represented by the Muses and the goddess Pallas Athene as well as by the woman thinkers, scientists and philosophers who came after them.
Approximately 15 paintings and etchings from the stock of the gallery are on display, among them works by Rubens, Brueghel, Boucher, Rottmayr and Kremserschmidt. Thanks to loans from the Staatliche Antikensammlung und Glyptothek in Munich and from the Antikensammlung of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the mythological scenes painted in the 17th and 18th centuries can be shown side by side with their models from antiquity.
Editor: Gabriele Groschner Owner and publisher: Residenzgalerie Salzburg Year of publication: 2000 Language: English, German Number of pages: 106 Illustrations in color: 13 Illustrations in black and white: 17 Book sizes: 21 x 21 cm
