Apollo and Marsyas, Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago Visit 10/5/10
Originally uploaded by O. Douglas Jennings

After an excursion to Chicago to attend a Graphics Expo with my co-workers, the seven of us were given leave by our supervisor to visit the Art Institute at company expense. Remarkably I was the only one who took him up on the offer. The rest of the group, including that same supervisor, feeling too tired after the day at the expo and wanting to catch an early train back to the suburbs. It was 2pm and I had three hours before the Art Institute closed to have free reign of the galleries with no one in tow. What a delightfully serendipitous opportunity!

Rounding the corner in a gallery of 19th Century European Painting, I was struck by the sight of a curious oil canvas with an intricately painted wooden frame decorated with leaf fronds and musical instruments.

In this painting, two figures stand in the middle of a clearing surrounded by cypress trees. The one on the right, a satyr playing a flute, is in profile under some shade and faces the other figure. This second character seems to glow from within. The only covering on his otherwise naked and finely muscled youthful body is a strategically placed wisp of gauzy material. This is the god Apollo, identified by his lyre and laurel wreath crown. He stands partially facing the viewer in a three-quarter turn, one hand resting on the lyre the other holding a small staff of some sort.

The detail and exquisite technique with which the body of Apollo is painted is contrasted with the almost sketchy quality of his face which, despite of it's almost benign expression, seems , to me, to hide tension, disdain or impatience toward the satyr who is lost in his performance.

Even without knowing the story, I can see this is a stand off of some sort. The plaque next to the painting cites the artist as Has Thoma, German who created it in 1888. Titled Apollo and Marsyas, it is taken from the story in which the talented satyr challenges the god of the lyre to a musical competition. Apollo wins, as gods always do. One would never know from this idyllic scene that the god will flay Marsyas alive for the impudence of the challenge.

This image has haunted me since I first saw it. I relate to the simple joy I see of the satyr performing his art in which he loses himself. He's a rustic outsider. Non-conforming, non-conventional, he aspires to be heard and appreciated. Something about the beautiful, seductive, yet cold critical presence of Apollo is familiar as well. He embodies the powerful and established of the art world. Ever critical, ever exacting he will eviscerate the talented upstarts who come to him to test their creative mettle. This has been my struggle: seeking the embrace of Apollo, experiencing his scathing critiques and trying to find a path for my life as a creative.

In the myth, the blood of Marsyas becomes the river named that bears his name. A river that flows, refreshes and irrigates to bring life. For me this is a consolation that even if I do not achieve the fame and success offered by the Apollos in this world, my art can have the power to nourish others.

2020 UPDATE:

Here is the painting "The Flaying of Marsyas" by Titian that illustrates the rest of the myth:

It is featured as a backdrop for this famous portrait of brilliant Novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch by artist Tom Phillips:

The description on the National Portrait Gallery page for the painting:

The portrait was painted in the artist's London studio. In the background is a detail from Titian's The Flaying of Marsyas, a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy at the time artist and sitter met and the subject of conversations between them. Phillips described Murdoch as 'a luminous presence…an electric light-bulb in that gloomy corner, glowing, casting out darkness'.

Excerpt from an article about Murdoch's love of Titian's masterpiece:

The Flaying of Marsyas had a particular meaning and value to her. She used accurate descriptions of The Death of Actaeon and Perseus and Andromeda to form the texture of her novels, to illustrate a character, scene, or idea. But instead of using Marsyas in a conventional novelistic way, Murdoch alludes to it indirectly. She opposes traditional interpretations of the picture, and perversely distorts its meaning for her own fictional purposes. Where others have found in the myth a cruel story of a vengeful god, she finds in it a religious experience, in which the sufferer learns to transcend the loss of ego.