The Heliads at the grave of Phaeton (Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 340-366) 1770 - 1780

Curator: Here we have Richard Cosway’s "The Heliads at the grave of Phaeton," a drawing made sometime between 1770 and 1780. My initial reaction? An ethereal grief washes over me. The pale washes, the figures in mournful poses… Editor: It's interesting how Cosway uses classical realism to portray a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. We see the Heliads, Phaeton's sisters, transformed into trees, forever weeping for their fallen brother. The weeping as environmental disaster...a timeless representation. Curator: I'm so drawn to the ambiguity of it all. Is it a completed thought, or a fleeting feeling jotted on paper? The figures almost melt into the background, like watercolor memories fading with time. Editor: That ambiguity, to me, speaks to the era's preoccupation with the relationship between the classical past and contemporary experience. These are not simply illustrations; they are dialogues about memory, loss, and transformation rendered during a revolutionary period. Consider what stories, then, were elevated or, like that of the weeping women, served a didactic purpose. Curator: I see it as an invitation to mourn, to find beauty in sorrow. Look at the delicate use of pencil and the subtle coloring, almost as if Cosway didn't want to disrupt the sadness but rather caress it onto the page. He almost seemed to whisper a song to accompany the grieving Heliads! Editor: Perhaps. And it’s within this grief that we see the penalties for unchecked ambition or, in this case, Phaeton’s hubris in asking to drive his father's sun chariot. The image reminds us about the potential pitfalls of challenging divine authority, yet told through a lens of deep, arguably, feminine sorrow. Curator: Seeing this drawing today, I think about the ghosts of the past. Are we still mourning those old stories? Or, like Cosway, are we transmuting that sadness into something new, something beautiful? Editor: For me, it’s more about using these classical narratives to examine our present. Cosway offers not just aesthetic pleasure but a stark meditation on power, consequence, and enduring ecological grief.