Selene and Endymion, by Nicolas Poussin (1630)

This beautiful picture by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) is currently in the Detroit Institute of Arts – but it is possible that the museum will sell its collection to cover some $15-$17 billion in debt. 

Poussin was the greatest painter of the classical French Baroque style.  He lived for most of his life in Rome, where he felt he had access to the greatest masterpieces of antiquity.  There is a stately majesty to his work, a brilliant command of drawing, and a sure eye for composition.  Though he would fall out of favor for a long period after his death, his work was appreciated by intelligent aesthetes and he would go on to influence artists as diverse as Jean-August-Dominque Ingres (1780-1867) and Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).

This remarkable picture tells the story of Selene and Endymion.  Though accounts of the story vary – with Endymion either a shepherd, astronomer or king – they all agree upon his remarkable beauty.  In one version of the story Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon, thought Endymion so beautiful that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth so that he would never leave her.  Zeus granted her wish, but put him into eternal sleep.  Selene would visit him each night where he slept – over time, the two would have 50 daughters.  (Obviously Endymion was a light sleeper.)

In another version of the story Hypnos, the god of sleep, in awe of Endymion’s beauty, causes him to sleep with his eyes open, to better admire his natural face. Selene grew to love him from afar, and brought love to him during his dreams.

Selene was the twin sister of Apollo, so she was herself a great beauty.  The Romans would later come to worship her as a triple deity, Luna (the sky), Diana (the earth), Hecate (the underworld).

The story of Selene and Endymion has captured the imagination of artists and poets from antiquity on.  Endymion would stand as a symbol of eternal beauty – a joy forever.  Poussin's painting shows Endymion awake, kneeling to welcome the arrival of the moon goddess, while her brother the sun-god is just beginning his journey across the heavens in his golden chariot. 

The stagecraft of Poussin here is remarkable.  The heavy blue curtains of night are opened to reveal the chariot of the sun lighting up the sky with various shades of yellow and gold.  The scene is revealed almost like a theatrical tableaux, and the dramatic intensity is palpable.

The sheep and dog and the background point to Poussin illustrating the Endymion-as-shepherd version of the tale.  The sleeping putti speak to the overall enchantment of Endymion and his environs and it is clear that we are in a mystical space.

One of the most interesting things is the relationship between the figures of Selene and Endymion.  The youth falls to his knee in supplication before the moon goddess – this is not an act of romantic love, but religious adoration.  Selene, with her half-moon diadem, returns the gaze, but it does not seem to be romantic (or even erotic) love she shares with the boy, but possession and comfort.

However, she holds love’s arrow in her hand, and she is as much a victim of Cupid as any mortal.  To Poussin, the gods are magnificent and supernatural, but not unmoved by human passions.

This is not a large picture (some 48x66), but the scope of Poussin’s vision is impressive.  The story of Selene and Endymion is also rife with subtext; Endymion finds the love of an idealized god (and eternal youth) in his dreams.  How richly populated by myth and beauty are our own dreams?  To what extend are our dreams our true lives, the realest manifestation of our selves?  The power of myth is closely akin to the power of dreams, and we dismiss the power of either at our own peril.

Tomorrow, we go to the movies see a contemporary blockbuster.

The Dilemma of the Detroit Institute of Arts

We resume The Jade Sphinx this week with some thoughts on something of a controversy regarding the role of museums and the public trust.

Detroit, Michigan is some $15-$17 billion dollars in debt.  Seeking to find revenue, there has been some discussion of selling the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a fabulous museum in a severely financially-strapped city.

The collection at the DIA is world-class.  It includes work by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569).  If Detroit seeks bankruptcy protection, city officials say that the collection could be sold to satisfy creditors.  The city’s state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr is debating whether the collection should be considered city assets that could be sold to cover the long-term debt.  The art, if sold, could be worth billions of dollars.  Brugel’s The Wedding Dance, for example, is estimated to be worth between $100-$150 million dollars.  A fire sale at the DIA might be just what the exhausted and depleted city needs.

This should be chilling to anyone actively involved in museums.  The historical wisdom is that the city (or state) is the best possible guardian of nonprofit cultural institutions like museums – but the modern-day reality may be that museums have to be protected from them.  Governments can destroy art in any number of ways – censorship, war, religious intolerance – but simply spending more than we have seems a distinctly American twist to the challenge.

The outrage about this possibility has been swift – its efficacy not yet demonstrated.  Voting 24-13, the Senate passed a bill introduced by Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) that would create obstacles standing in the way of any effort to sell the collection.  In addition, the Michigan Attorney General, Bill Schuette, said that the collection is held in charitable trust for the people of Michigan and could be not sold to help settle debts.  But, city officials disagree.

Where do we at The Jade Sphinx stand on this debate?

Well, the protection and curatorship of great art is a covenant.  This covenant stands between our artistic heritage and the people and their leaders.  The covenant is not just that the works be accessible to the public, but also protected, cherished and held valuable by the public.  In this case, that covenant has been broken.

The population of Detroit has dropped from nearly 2 million in the mid-1950s to somewhere around 700,000 today.  Detroit is no longer heavily visited, with the result that these great treasures are little-seen outside of a dwindling population.

If we respect the covenant that binds responsible stewardship to great art, we believe the works here are too culturally important, too artistically relevant and too precious to be so underutilized.  Our recommendation would be – if Detroit insists on the sale of these treasures – that they be sold to other museums in cities with more sizable populations and with greater resources to promote the arts. 

Tomorrow we look at a picture in the DIA collection, Selene and Endymion by Nicolas Poussin.