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Noel-Nicolas Coypel
The Rape of Europa, 1722
Noel-Nicolas came from a family of artists that included his father, Noel Coypel and his older half-brother, Antoine Coypel. The younger Coypel was made a full member of the French Academy of Painting in 1720 and had an active career creating mythological and historical pictures, often as part of interior decorative schemes. Thought they are now painted over, small traces of spandrels at the corners of this canvas suggest that it was original used for this purpose.
In this witty and ironic painting, Coypel illustrates a famous story from antiquity told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Having fallen in love with Europa, daughter of the King of Type, Jupiter disguised himself as a white bull to entice her onto his back so he could carry her off and seduce her. However, as irreverently painted by Coypel, the story lacks any of redeeming moralizing that artists traditionally employed to gloss over such ultimately erotic tales. Instead, he humorously contrasts the maiden's lack of sophistication with the ridiculous lengths used by the most powerful (as well as lustful and petty) of the ancient gods to carry out his plan. |