Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot
Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot c1718-19 by Italian Artist Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691–1765); kendt som arkitekt og maler i sine udsigter over Rom, der beskriver antikviteterne i den store by.
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.
Dette er en retoucheret digital kunstgengivelse af et offentligt image.
Information Above & Below Is Derived From Wikipedia.org
Giovanni Paolo Panini eller Giovanni Paolo Pannini var en maler og arkitekt, der arbejdede i Rom og primært er kendt som en af vedutisti (“se malere”).
Som maler, Pannini er bedst kendt for sine udsigter over Rom, hvor han interesserede sig særligt for byens antikviteter.
Blandt hans mest berømte værker er hans syn på det indre af Pantheon (på vegne af Francesco Algarotti 1712 – 1764 – En venetiansk polymat), og hans vedute malerier af billedgallerier med udsigt over Rom.
De fleste af hans værker, især ruinernes, har en fantasifuld og uvirkelig udsmykning karakteristisk for capriccio -temaer. I dette ligner de capricci af den italienske maler og grafiker Marco Ricci (1676 – 1730).
Panini malede også portrætter, herunder en af pave Benedikt XIV (født Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini 1675 – 1758 – Leder af den katolske kirke fra 1740 – 1758).
I Rom, Panini fik et navn for sig selv som dekoratør af paladser. Nogle af hans værker omfattede Villa Patrizi c1719/25, Palazzo de Carolis c1720, og Seminario Romano c1721/22).
I 1719, Panini blev optaget i kongregationen af Virtuosi al Pantheon. Han underviste i Rom ved Accademia di San Luca og Académie de France, hvor han siges at have påvirket Jean-Honoré Fragonard. I 1754, han tjente som prinsen (direktør) fra Accademia di San Luca.