In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen.
My mind now strives to tell of bodies changed,
Which gods transformed into forms anew;
Breathe power, O deities, into my endeavor,
And guide this song through time eternal.
Gazing, together with Caravaggio, into the clear waters of a pond, admiring alongside Narcissus his reflection – rendered down to the finest muscle and the slightest fold of his blouse by the great master of light – we recall the hero’s transformation into a flower, one that is particularly beloved in the Netherlands. It is among the first to appear on soil not yet warmed, in February or March, delighting the eye with its orange corona framed by delicate petals. The exhibition “Metamorphoses” at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam focuses on the constant transformation of forms – of people, gods, and things – an idea expressed in the central theme of the Metamorphoses by Ovid, written in the 1st century BC. Everything changes, yet nothing perishes – “Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”. From the 250 mythological stories, the curators have selected ten and paired them with paintings, drawings, sculptures, and decorative arts, all connected to themes of transformation, metamorphosis, and Ovidian myth. Mythological subjects in world art appear here in unexpected forms, spanning a wide range from the Renaissance to the present day. Rare artworks – usually kept in storage – are brought into view, each engaging with a particular myth.
A pair of spiders (a mother and the small one sheltering beneath her) by Louise Bourgeois, placed in a gallery with Italian tapestries, alludes to the myth of Arachne, who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest and, having surpassed her, was transformed into a spider, doomed to weave forever. The envy of the gods, it seems, is timeless. The spider is one of Bourgeois’s central motifs. Countering our instinctive unease, it instead refers to her mother’s profession as a tapestry restorer. For the French-born American artist, spiders symbolise motherhood and protection. This is far from the horror of Alfred Hitchcock – and yet, there remains something unsettling about them.
The Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen reinterprets the classical image of the Crouching Venus, transforming it into a hybrid creature – a woman with the head of a bull, resting upon a skull. In this being, Venus and Jupiter converge: beauty and power, seduction and threat. Working in Portuguese pink marble, the artist views such hybrids as sources of natural evolution -fusions in which, much like in Ovid’s myths, ever new forms of life emerge.
A bronze prototype of Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini (the original, also in bronze, was an extraordinarily complex sixteenth-century casting on a monumental five-metre scale, still standing in the heart of Florence) is complemented by a video installation by the Dutch artist Juul Kraijer, known for her exploration of the body, transformation, and the space between human and nature. Her work Spawn (2019), inspired by the myth of Medusa, shows snakes moving freely and almost indifferently across a model’s face, creating a powerful visual image of metamorphosis.
The image of Zeus transforming himself into a swan in order to seduce Leda, queen of Sparta, appears refined in the painting of Ghirlandaio and graceful in marble by a pupil of Michelangelo. Yet the idea of metamorphosis is perhaps most compellingly expressed in a sculpture of brass, bronze, and copper by the Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988): in the fluid transition from human to bird and back again, in the harmonious merging and flowing of metals, and in the minimalism and abstraction of the composition as a whole.
The exhibition Metamorphoses at Amsterdam’s principal museum, the Rijksmuseum, offers not only aesthetic pleasure but also a perfect occasion to return to the ancient Roman poet Ovid and his timeless work – and to reflect on how many linguistic transformations in European languages originate from Latin.