Mercury readying himself to decapitate the sleeping Argus
Jacob Jordaens·1650
Historical Context
This depiction of Mercury preparing to behead the sleeping Argos, dating to around 1650, treats a mythological subject from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Jacob Jordaens, the leading Flemish painter after Rubens' death in 1640, brought a robust, earthy vitality to classical mythology that distinguished his approach from Rubens' more idealized treatments. Jordaens's mythological paintings belong to the great tradition of Flemish mythological painting that Rubens had established, in which the gods of antiquity inhabit a world of Flemish physicality and sensuous abundance. Like his master and model Rubens, Jordaens treated classical mythology as a vehicle for celebrating the beauty of the human body and the pleasures of the natural world, but his mythology is heavier and more earthbound than Rubens's, his gods more recognizably Antwerp burghers temporarily promoted to divine status. His command of multi-figure compositions in warm dramatic light made him one of the most sought-after painters of monumental mythological subjects in the Spanish Netherlands.
Technical Analysis
Jordaens' vigorous brushwork and warm, fleshy palette create a characteristically robust interpretation of the mythological subject, with strong chiaroscuro emphasizing the dramatic tension of the moment before Mercury strikes.
Look Closer
- ◆Mercury's sword arm is raised but his gaze has the fixed concentration of imminent action — Jordaens captures the instant before the stroke rather than the stroke itself, holding maximum tension.
- ◆The sleeping Argus is rendered with physiological accuracy of deep sleep — the relaxed limbs, slightly open mouth, and the disarmed posture of a body that has surrendered to unconsciousness.
- ◆The wings on Mercury's helmet flutter in the airstream of his movement — a dynamic detail that indicates Jordaens was thinking about the mechanics of divine speed.
- ◆The contrast between the alert, tensed Mercury and the oblivious, slack-bodied Argus creates the painting's central dramatic irony — violence about to befall the unknowing.
- ◆The musical pipe with which Mercury lulled Argus to sleep is visible in the composition, a narrative prop that explains the preceding event without depicting it.
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