Diana and Endymion

Because the goddess Luna fell in love with Endymion, a handsome young man, the most powerful god condemned him to eternal sleep. Since then, Luna descends to the sleeping young man in the cave on Mount Latmus during her evening voyage and her moonlight kisses him. Her light remains sad as she failed to wake him up.

The ancient myth takes place in a night landscape according to the traditional story. The goddess bathed in moonlight and identified by the half-moon on her forehead approaches the sleeping young man. Only the figures are decisive in the plot. They dominate in a simple composition of two diagonals. A low horizon stretches parallel to the space of the
painting. 

Baroque artists frequently depicted the story of Diana and Endymion. Considering the vast array of consumers of this popular theme, the artists approached its adaptation with diverse interest. 

Pier Francesco Mola repeatedly used an identical composition in his paintings with the theme of the Vision of Saint Bruno which exists in several replicas. However, the scene of Diana and Endymion, known from Mola’s other work, a larger canvas found in Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome, which was created in response to the work of Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), is not repeated.

Zuzana Ludiková ● LUDIKOVÁ, Zuzana - BURAN, Dušan. Talianska maľba = Italian Painting. Bratislava : Slovenská národná galéria, 2013. 242 strán. ISBN 9788080591748.