Orpheus singing to the animals

Orpheus Singing to the Animals, undated and in the Finnish National Gallery, depicts the Ovidian myth of Orpheus whose music was so divine that wild animals gathered around him and ceased their natural enmities. The subject was irresistible to a painter of Castiglione's speciality — it provided mythological authorisation to depict an impossibly varied gathering of creatures, from snakes to lions, all attentive to the musician. The Finnish National Gallery, Ateneum, holds Italian Baroque works acquired through the collections that developed around the Finnish art scene in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Castiglione's Orpheus type — half-clothed, surrounded by dense animal congregation — became one of his most replicated compositions.

The animal audience is arranged in a wide arc around the central musician, each species given sufficient space for individual characterisation. Orpheus's lyre creates the composition's central vertical while the listening animals create horizontal depth in both directions. Warm foliage and gentle light reinforce the enchanted calm of Orpheus's music.