The photograph of the Ovid exhibition (Ovid Austellung) held by the German art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) in the elliptical room of the Warburg-Haus library in Hamburg serves as a useful basis for discussion on the exhibition layout and its dialogue with the frescoes, images and events at Palazzo Te.
Held between 29 January and 6 February 1927 in the Kulturwissenscheftliche Warburg Bibliothek, the event took place alongside a lecture by the curator of the Amsterdam Prints Cabinet, Max Ditmar Henkel, on 16th and 17th-century illustrated editions of Ovid’s work. Featuring the Metamorphoses, the small exhibition was focused on Warburg’s research into the formulation of his intellectual processes; forms of thought expressed through images. This project was part of the unfinished Atlas of Images, Mnemosyne, the scholar’s vast research into the survival of Classical culture (Nachleben der Antike) in Renaissance art and focused on the cultural migration in terms of space and time of the values of Antiquity.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses transform, according to Warburg, ‘into a treasure trove for the expressive values of psychological dynamics’, and in photographs and books mounted on panels the most significant Ovidian myths interpret the motifs that punctuate this conceptual journey. The panels are dedicated to the original roots (Urworte/Ur-words or primordial words) of the Metamorphoses in its shift from pursuit to abduction, sacrificial death to human sacrifice, sacrificial dance, and funeral lament, through the myths of Apollo and Daphne, Actaeon, Proserpina and Orpheus, and the figures of ancient tragedy, from Medea to Polyxena to Laocoon. Above the panels are labels categorising images, literary, theatrical and musical texts.
The six panels in the 1927 exhibition feature some of the myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, starting with the theme of the chase and metamorphosis in the first panel, in which the motifs, the roots (Urworte), find visual expression and emotional involvement in the myth of Chloris pursued by Zephyrus and transformed into Flora, and in that of Daphne pursued by Apollo and transformed into a laurel tree.
The arrangement of the picture series runs in chronological order, from ancient to medieval works to Renaissance and 17th century masterpieces. Details of theatrical or musical works, such as the Intermezzi performances held on the occasion of Ferdinando de’ Medici’s wedding to Christine of Lorraine in 1589 are also included. This panel ends with the superb sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, a masterpiece by Gianlorenzo Bernini in the Galleria Borghese, perhaps the most expressive work of Western art.
The lower part, again in chronological order, is a display of ancient editions of the Metamorphoses, open on the images of the myth itself and showing the onlooker the superlative quality of the editions of contemporary printers and engravers.
In the panel devoted to the abduction of Proserpina, Rubens’ magnificent painting now in the Prado is at the centre of the composition, surrounded by drawings and paintings on the same subject as interpreted by artists such as Rembrandt or Moeyaert and engravers such as Antonio Tempesta.
Giulio Romano also interprets the abduction theme in four of the stucco decorations in the vault of the Chamber of the Eagles. In particular, the artist’s preparatory drawing of the Abduction of Proserpina (Louvre), derived from an ancient relief in the Borghese collection in Rome, was taken as a model by Rubens for his painting at the Petit Palais in Paris (VI.2) executed during his stay at the Gonzaga court in the early 17th century.
The myth of Orpheus is the focus in the panel depicting death by sacrifice (Opfertod), through drawings by Albrecht Dürer and Giulio Romano (I.4). In the panel, several images are also dedicated to the musical aspects of the myth of Orpheus and his beloved Eurydice, commented on by Aby Warburg in his notes for Ovid Austellung: ‘In the Ovidian lyric there is the aria of Orpheus as a heroic theatrical piece and Orpheus, the opera singer, who with his lyre laments Eurydice lost forever’.
Referring to Greek tragedy is the figure of Medea, who breathes life into the panel depicting human sacrifice (Menschenopfer) and Polyxena. The last panel is dedicated to sacrificial dance (Opfertanz) and funeral lament (Klage), expressed through the tragedy of Laocoon and his children suffocated by the serpents’ coils, as shown in the lyrical rendering of the ancient marble group in the Vatican Museums.