Woman Portrayed as the Goddess Diana 1639

Cesare Dandini painted this alluring “Woman Portrayed as the Goddess Diana” using oil on canvas. Oil paint is interesting; its fluid handling allowed Dandini to create a range of textures and effects. Notice how he built up the forms through thin glazes of color, to give a luminous quality. The folds in the rich velvet backdrop, and the plushness of her extravagant, feathered headdress, contrast with the harder textures of the bow in her hand, or the metal adornments. Oil paint was, by Dandini’s time, a relatively industrialized material – pigments could be sourced more widely than in previous centuries, and of course canvas had become commonplace. Dandini would have relied on workshop assistants to prepare these materials. And in the end, the painting itself becomes a commodity, bought and sold on the art market – a far cry from the world of Diana, goddess of the hunt. Considering the labor, materials, and markets involved, it reminds us that even classical allegories have a context in the here and now.