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Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, PRA (British, 1830-1896) Cymon and Iphigenia, Detail, 1884 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Cymon and Iphigenia

Artist: Frederic Leighton (British, 1830-1896)

Date: 1884

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Description

The painting is based on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. It depicts a scene from the first tale of day five; Iphigenia is sleeping in the woods and Cymon, a young nobleman, stands gazing at her beauty which fills him with inspiration. After seeing her, Cymon changes from a badly mannered lout to an ideal polymath. Nahum felt it "emphasized the transforming power of beauty." Boccaccio set the story in the springtime; Leighton preferred the ambience of a more autumnal feel. The artist was very precise about the mood he wanted to reflect by describing the specific setting of the time of day as "the most mysteriously beautiful in the whole twenty-four hours". He wished to capture the overall impression of drowsiness just before drifting to sleep especially on long hot days as night begins to fall. The painting is set when there is the "merest lip of the moon" showing on the horizon above the sea and the atmosphere is "haunted still with the flush of the after-glow from the sun already hidden in the west."

Cymon and Iphigenia

Artist: Lord Frederic Leighton (British, 1830-1896)

Date: 1884

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Description

The languorous splendour of 'Cymon and Iphigenia' - the tale of a raw youth brought to moral excellence by the revelation of feminine beauty - perfectly expresses the technical finesse and intense eroticism of Leighton's style. Iphigenia's extraordinary undulations betray a sensuous sensibility quite as much as the artist's obligatory scrutiny of classical statuary. The direct source of the narrative is Boccaccio's 'Decameron', in which the well-born and handsome young Galesus was renamed Cymon - meaning beast - on account of his brutishness. On a mild afternoon in May, Cymon chanced upon the sleeping Iphigenia, sensing at once that she was 'the loveliest object that any mortal being had ever seen'. Falling instantly in love, he became a lifelong devotee of beauty and philosophy.