Galatea (Raphael)

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The Triumph of Galatea

Raphael, 1512

fresco

295 × 224 cm

Villa Farnesina, Rome

The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco masterpiece completed in 1512 by the Italian painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome; it is representative of the renewed interest into secular classic mythology dear to Renaissance artists.

The Farnesina was built for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, one of the richest men of that age. The Farnese family later acquired and renamed the villa, smaller than the more ostentatious palazzo at the other side of the Tiber. The fresco is a mythological scene of a series embellishing the open gallery of the building, a series never completed which was inspired to the "Stanze per la giostra" of the poet Angelo Poliziano. In Greek mythology, the beautiful Nereid Galatea had fallen in love with the peasant shepherd Acis. Her consort, one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, after chancing upon the two lovers together, lobbed an enormous pillar and killed Acis.

Raphael did not paint any of the main events of the story. He choose the scene of the nymph's apotheosis (Stanze, I, 118-119). Galatea appears surrounded by other sea creatures whose forms are somewhat inspired to Michelangelo, whereas the bright colors and decoration are supposed to be inspired by ancient Roman painting. At the left, a sturdy Triton (partly man, partly fish) abducts a sea nymph; behind them, another Triton uses a shell as a trumpet. Galatea rides a shell-coach drawn by two dolphins.

Vasari states that Raphael did not mean for Galatea to resemble any one human person, but to represent the ideal beauty. The nymphs gaze are therefore directed upward to heaven, perhaps to the one little cherubic Cupid whose arrows are still held in the quiver. Either way, both are gazes reflecting Platonic love. Rumor holds that the painter used as a model, Agostino Chigi's lover, the courtesan Imperia, and that Raphael took advantage of the sessions and the absences of the banker to woo the woman.

Seeing this theme of a woman abiding the waves on a shell reminds us of the now-ubiquitous image of The Birth of Venus by Botticelli (1483). However, that high-renaissance icon scuds effortlessy in a placid ocean; Raphael's Galatea swivels forward, urged on by gallivanting dolphins and a boisterous crowd of nereids and mermen.