Judgement of Paris

Peter_Paul_Rubens
The Judgement of Paris Artist: Peter Paul Rubens Year: c. 1636 Dimensions: 144.8 cm × 193.7 cm (57.0 in × 76.3 in) Location: National Gallery, London

The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War

Sources of the episode

As with many mythological tales, details vary depending on the source. The brief allusion to the Judgement in the Iliad (24.25–30) shows that the episode initiating all the subsequent action was already familiar to its audience; a fuller version was told in the Cypria, a lost work of the Epic Cycle, of which only fragments (and a reliable summary) remain. The later writers Ovid (Heroides 16.71ff, 149–152 and 5.35f), Lucian (Dialogues of the Gods 20), The Bibliotheca (Epitome E.3.2) and Hyginus (Fabulae 92), retell the story with skeptical, ironic or popularizing agendas. It appeared wordlessly on the ivory and gold votive chest of the 7th-century BC tyrant Cypselus at Olympia, which was described by Pausanias as showing:

Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris_(1630s)
The Judgement of Paris Artist: Peter Paul Rubens Year: 1639 Dimensions: 199 cm × 379 cm (78 in × 149 in) Location: Museu del Prado, Madrid

The subject was favoured by painters of Red-figure pottery as early as the sixth century BC, and remained popular in Greek and Roman art, before enjoying a significant revival, as an opportunity to show three female nudes, in the Renaissance.

Mythic narrative

It is recounted that Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (parents of Achilles). However, Eris, goddess of discord was not invited, for she would have made the party unpleasant for everyone. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at the celebration with a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, which she threw into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, “for the fairest one”).

François-Xavier_Fabre_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris
François-Xavier Fabre, c. 1808

 

Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually he, reluctant to favour any claim himself, declared that Paris, a Trojan mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown his exemplary fairness in a contest in which Ares in bull form had bested Paris’s own prize bull, and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god.

Anselm_Feuerbach_-_Das_Urteil_des_Paris
Anselm Feuerbach, c. 1869-1870

 

 

Thus it happened that, with Hermes as their guide, the three candidates bathed in the spring of Ida, then confronted Paris on Mount Ida in the climactic moment that is the crux of the tale. While Paris inspected them, each attempted with her powers to bribe him; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of the Cypria quoted by Athenagoras of Athens), offered the world’s most beautiful woman (Euripides, Andromache, l.284, Helena l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite’s gift and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks’ expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War.

Carel_van_savoyen_-_le_jugement_de_paris
Carel van Savoyen, c. 1650-1660

The mytheme of the Judgement of Paris naturally offered artists the opportunity to depict a sort of beauty contest between three beautiful female nudes, but the myth, at least since Euripides, rather concerns a choice among the gifts that each goddess embodies. The bribery involved is ironic and a late ingredient.

According to a tradition suggested by Alfred J. Van Windekens, objectively, “cow-eyed” Hera was indeed the most beautiful, not Aphrodite. However, Hera was the goddess of the marital order and of cuckolded wives, amongst other things. She was often portrayed as the shrewish, jealous wife of Zeus, who himself often escaped from her controlling ways by cheating on her with other women, mortal and immortal. She had fidelity and chastity in mind and was careful to be modest when Paris was inspecting her. Aphrodite, though not as objectively beautiful as Hera, was the goddess of sexuality, and was effortlessly more sexual and charming before him. Thus, she was able to sway Paris into judging her the fairest. Athena’s beauty is rarely commented in the myths, perhaps because Greeks held her up as an asexual being, being able to “overcome” her “womanly weaknesses” to become both wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by the Greeks). Her rage at losing makes her join the Greeks in the battle against Paris’ Trojans, a key event in the turning point of the war.

Frans_Floris_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris_
Frans Floris, c. 1550s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mengs,_Urteil_des_Paris
Anton Raphael Mengs, c. 1757
Lucas_Cranach_the_Elder_-_Judgment_of_Paris
Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1530
Lucas_cranach_judgement_of_paris
Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1528
Lucas_Cranach_d._Ä._-_The_Judgment_of_Paris
Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. between 1512-1514
Luca_Giordano_-_Judgment_of_Paris
Luca Giordano, c. between 1681-1683
Jean-Antoine_Watteau_-_Le_jugement_de_Pâris
Antoine Watteau, c. 1720
Joachim_Wtewael_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris
Joachim Wtewael, c. 1605
Frans_Floris_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris
Frans Floris, c. 1548
Enrique_Simonet_-_El_Juicio_de_Paris
El Juicio de Paris by Enrique Simonet, c. 1904 (Museo de Málaga)
El_juicio_de_Paris-El_jui_de_Paris-Joan_de_Joanes
Joan de Joanes, c. approx. 1523-1579
Eduard_Veith_Urteil_des_Paris
Eduard Veith, c. by 1925
Eduard_Lebiedzki_Urteil_des_Paris
Eduard Lebiedzki, c. by 1906

 

Michele_rocca_-_o_julgamento_de_paris
Michele Rocca, c. between 1710-1720
Cornelis_Cornelisz._van_Haarlem_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris
Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, c. 1628

 

 

Claude_Lorrain_(1600_-_1682),_The_Judgment_of_Paris,_1645-1646,_oil_on_canvas._National_Gallery_of_Art,_Washingto
Claude Lorrain, c. 1645-1646
Botticelli-Juicio-de-Paris
Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485-1488. This is one of the very few versions in which all three goddesses are fully clothed.
Angelica_Kauffman_-_El_juicio_de_Paris
Angelica Kauffman, c. 1770-1797
Adriaen_van_der_Werff
Adriaen van der Werff, c. 1712
Aachen_Le_jugement_de_Paris
Hans von Aachen, c. 1588
Joseph_Hauber_Das_Urteil_d_Paris
Joseph Hauber, c. 1819
Joachim_Wtewael_-_The_Judgment_of_Paris_(1615)
Joachim Wtewael, c. 1615, with the wedding feast of the gods in the background
Hans_von_Aachen
Hans von Aachen, c. 1593.

Source Wikipedia.