Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot
Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot c1718-19 by Italian Artist Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691–1765); known as an architect and painter of his vistas of Rome, detailing the antiquities of that great city.
This piece follows the legend of the Phrygians an an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia in antiquity; and were related to the Greeks.
The Phrygians were without a king; but an oracle at Telmissus, the ancient capital of Lycia decreed that the next man to enter the city that was driving an ox-cart should become their king.
Then a peasant farmer named Gordias came into the city on an ox-cart and was promptly declared king; and out of gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart his father was driving to the Phrygian god Sabazios; whom the Greeks identified with Zeus and tied it to a post with an intricate knot of cornel bark.
The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordium in the fourth century BC when Alexander the Great arrived there; by which time the kingdom of Phrygia had been reduced to a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire.
Then another oracle declared that the man capable of unraveling the elaborate knot was destined to become the ruler of Asia; and so Alexander gave his hand at unraveling the knot with little success; but he reasoned that it mad no difference how the knot was unraveled, so he drew his sword and sliced it mid way with a single stroke.
This is a retouched digital art reproduction of a public domain image.
Information Above & Below Is Derived From Wikipedia.org
Giovanni Paolo Panini ou Giovanni Paolo Pannini était un peintre et architecte qui a travaillé à Rome et est principalement connu comme l'un des vedutisti (“view painters”).
Cum'è un pittore, Pannini hè più cunnisciutu per e so vedute di Roma, in which he took a particular interest in the city’s antiquities.
Trà i so opere più famose sò a so vista di l'internu di u Pantheon (au nom de Francesco Algarotti 1712 – 1764 – Un polimaticu venezianu), è i so pitture vedute di galerie di pittura chì cuntenenu vedute di Roma.
A maiò parte di e so opere, in particulare quelli di ruvine, hannu un embellishment fantasiosa è irreale carattiristichi di temi capricciu. En cela ils ressemblent aux capricci du peintre et graveur italien Marco Ricci (1676 – 1730).
Panini hà ancu fattu ritratti, cumpresu unu di u Papa Benedettu XIV (né Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini 1675 – 1758 – Capu di a Chiesa Cattolica da 1740 – 1758).
In Roma, Panini hà guadagnatu un nome per ellu stessu cum'è decoratore di palazzi. Parmi ses œuvres figure la Villa Patrizi c1719/25, u Palazzo de Carolis c1720, è u Seminariu Rumanu c1721 / 22).
In 1719, Panini hè statu ammissu à a Cungregazione di i Virtuosi al Pantheon. Il a enseigné à Rome à l'Accademia di San Luca et à l'Académie de France, induve si dice chì hà influenzatu Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In 1754, serviu cum'è principe (direttore) de l'Accademia di San Luca.