Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot
Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot c1718-19 by Italian Artist Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691–1765); bekend as arsjitekt en skilder fan syn útsichten fan Rome, detaillearre de âldheden fan dy grutte stêd.
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.
Dit is in retouchearre digitale keunstreproduksje fan in ôfbylding yn it iepenbier domein.
Information Above & Below Is Derived From Wikipedia.org
Giovanni Paolo Panini of Giovanni Paolo Pannini wie in skilder en arsjitekt dy't wurke yn Rome en is benammen bekend as ien fan 'e vedutisti (“sjoch skilders”).
As skilder, Pannini is fral bekend om syn útsichten fan Rome, dêr't er benammen belangstelling foar hie foar de âldheden fan de stêd.
Under syn bekendste wurken binne syn sicht op it ynterieur fan it Pantheon (út namme fan Francesco Algarotti 1712 – 1764 – In Venetian Polymath), en syn vedute skilderijen fan foto galeryen befetsje views fan Rome.
De measte fan syn wurken, benammen dy fan ruïnes, hawwe in fantastyske en ûnechte fersiering karakteristyk foar capriccio-tema's. Dêryn lykje se op de capricci fan Italjaanske skilder en printmakker Marco Ricci (1676 – 1730).
Panini skildere ek portretten, wêrûnder ien fan Paus Benediktus XIV (berne Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini 1675 – 1758 – Haad fan de katolike tsjerke út 1740 – 1758).
Yn Rome, Panini fertsjinne in namme foar himsels as dekorateur fan paleizen. Guon fan syn wurken omfette de Villa Patrizi c1719/25, it Palazzo de Carolis c1720, en it Romeinske Seminarium c1721/22).
Yn 1719, Panini waard talitten ta de Kongregaasje fan 'e Virtuosi al Pantheon. Hy joech les yn Rome oan de Accademia di San Luca en de Académie de France, dêr't fan sein wurdt dat er Jean-Honoré Fragonard beynfloede hat. Yn 1754, hy tsjinne as de prins (direkteur) fan de Accademia di San Luca.