Diana
Diana, goddess of the hunt, emerges from the forest with her bow, hound and nymphs, a mythological painting by Diaz, painter of the Barbizon woods. Full commentary ↓
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Diana is an oil painting by Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1849) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 118.1 × 70.5 cm.
In the pictureThe blond goddess, draped in yellow cloth and holding a bow, walks out of the forest. Four nymphs follow behind her; at the lower right is a gray hunting dog, and at the lower left a cherub holding a quiver. The background is dark foliage, and only the figures' skin and clothing are light.
BackgroundDiana is the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon. Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña was a Barbizon School painter famous for his landscapes of the Forest of Fontainebleau, but for the Salon he often submitted paintings like this one, showing mythological figures in the woods. His way of setting light skin against a dark forest is the same as the way the sky breaks through between the trees in his landscapes.
Puzzle tipFitting the figures' flesh-colored pieces, the yellow cloth and the gray dog first establishes the vertical axis of the picture. Divide the dark foliage pieces into those mixed with sky light from the upper left and those that are purely dark, and fill them in from the edges. It is a tall picture, so it is easiest to work from top to bottom.
- Artist
- French, Bordeaux 1808–1876 Menton
- Classification
- Paintings
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 118.1 x 70.5 cm
- Credit line
- Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
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