I have written numerous times about satyrs, fauns and Pans (and, for that matter, faunesses), but have not so far paused to highlight an interesting fact about the iconography of these beings. We tend to be used to heroes and divinities of myth as being young, healthy and beautiful, but the satyrs are different. Their mythology tends to describe them as older males, albeit still priapic in their natures, and one of their regular companions is the elderly and often inebriated Silenus. Satyrs, in fact, are often allowed considerable diversity; they don’t have to be in peak physical form, it seems.
Sex and wine are the two main preoccupations of satyrs, as is widely known. We have to admit, though, that these are an ill pairing- the ability to enjoy the former wanes the more the latter is indulged in. Wine, plus age, are the curses of the satyr, so that we often see them reduced to a gaggle of drunken old men, as in Hodges’ painting below, characters relying on each other for both physical and psychological support.
Charles Howard Hodges, Silenus & Three Satyrs
We see diversity constantly displayed, as at the head of the page with Jacob Jordaens’ figure. He leads an active, outdoor life, to be sure, but the artist doesn’t shy from representing the aging, sagging flesh and signs of a pot belly. The same is the case with his two much older satyr heads, seen below. Wrinkled skin, gnarled joints and white receding hair are honestly portrayed.
Jordaens, Head of a Satyr
Jordaens, Old Satyr with a Flute
All the imperfections of the mortal body can be excused and depicted when it comes to satyrs, it seems. We see the blissful, unashamed indulgence in greed of David de Haen’s figure, whilst Gerard van Honthorst’s loving pair remind us that, after all, you don’t have to be Adonis (or, apparently) have any teeth) to find a lover…
David de Haen, Satyr Drinking from Grapes
Gerard van Honthorst, Satyr & Nymph, 1623
The raddled flesh of the male satyrs could be matched by that of faunesses, as Tiepolo showed us. They are not a well-favoured race, on the whole, being every bit as goaty and hairy as we would expect. Add age and over-consumption of wine, and we must confront the truth that they day will come when their nymph chasing charms start to wane, leaving only thwarted desire. We get a sense of this in Sebastiano Ricci’s canvas, which shows a frustrated elderly satyr contemplating assaulting the sleeping goddess of love. It’s surely not wise, but the opportunity has presented itself and he can barely contain his lust.
Giovanni Batista Tiepolo, Satyress with Two Putti, 1740
Ricci, Venus & Satyr
Age may stand for decay and impotence, but it can also represent the wisdom of experience. This was the approach taken below by Peter Paul Rubens; his mature satyr retains a cheerful disposition, even when placed beside the memento mori of a semi-corrupted skull.
Rubens, Satyr
These honest portrayals of the physical realities of the mortal body were taken to their frankest extreme by Joel-Peter Witkin, who confronts us with a disabled satyr. The image may shock- even, perhaps, offend some- but its lineage can clearly be traced, as I’ve shown.
Joel-Peter Witkin, Satiro (Satyr)- Mexico, 1992
This posting expands on the subject matter covered in my 2021 book on the Great God Pan (Green Magic Publishing).
As I mentioned in a posting on the painter Henry Draper, one myth that has had an abiding attraction for many artists (for fairly obvious reasons) is that of Jupiter and Callisto.
Jupiter/ Zeus was a typical Olympian god, in that he couldn’t keep his thunderbolt in his toga, and when he spotted the nymph Callisto one day, he determined to have her. As Frans Hals pictured her (see above), she was clearly a highly desirable young woman but as one of the followers of Diana/ Artemis, she had sworn an oath of virginity and was strictly out of bounds. This didn’t dissuade the god, though; he simply took the form of her mistress and seduced her that way. This scenario has provided plenty of titillating material for painters since the Renaissance, and it’s interesting to see how different artists have handled the seduction.
after Caspar Netscher (1613)
Karoly Marko
A few painters, such Netscher and Marko, have painted the nymph as surprised or reluctant at the goddess’ entreaties. This may seem surprising: Diana had a reputation for taking girls as lovers- her other conquests included the goddess Britomaris, the princesses Cyrene, Anticleia and Atalanta and the nymphs Daphne, Amethystos and Taygete. There are said to have been gay and lesbian cults linked to the worship of her in her forms as Artemis Orthia, and Artemis Pergaea. On this basis, the hesitant or shrinking vision of Callisto seems surprising; in choosing to become one of Diana’s gang she had, consciously, chosen (to paraphrase Village People) to “hang out with all the girls.” The suspicion or reluctance may be more a matter of the sudden and urgent nature of Diana’s demands, which seemed uncharacteristic. In this, Callisto was, of course, perfectly right, as it was Zeus pressurising her into quick sex.
Peter Paul Rubens, 1613
Jean-Simone Berthelemy, 1743
Fragonard
Berthelemy’s Callisto seems simply meek and shy, though, rather than unwilling- as does Fragonard’s. The nymph in this version is distinctly younger than Diana, and she seems flattered, awed and overwhelmed by the goddess’ attention rather than being dismayed.
The anonymous French version of the scene from the eighteenth century, that is shown below, combines a physically insistent Diana with a slightly doubtful Callisto; the sight of the nearby eagle (symbol of Zeus) makes her begin to suspect that the woman caressing her so persistently isn’t all she seems. Berthe Morisot’s impressionist version of the seduction seems to capture the same moment; something has caught Callisto’s attention, despite Diana’s passionate embrace.
Anon, French, 18th century
Berthe Morisot
Other versions of the seduction are quite happy to present it at face value; they accept the lesbian nature of Diana and her retinue and simply concentrate on the two lovers’ interaction, without any subtext or distraction from the central story of a blossoming love. In Jacopo Amigoni’s rendition, Callisto is already perched on Diana’s lap, her arm around the goddess’ shoulders in easy familiarity. Likewise, a canvas produced by the workshop or circle of Antonis van Dyck shows the two women reaching out to each other whilst they gaze into each other’s eyes. Diana’s confident hand on the nymph’s thigh indicates that this is merely the culmination of an attraction that had already existed. The importuning Olympian god is quite forgotten in these images- they are concerned solely with the two women and their mutual affection and passion.
Jacopo Amigoni
from the school of Antonis van Dyck
Francois Boucher painted the pair several times; in the version below Diana is removing her lover’s clothes, but the nymph’s protesting hand fails to resist as their eyes meet. Zeus’ eagle is in the background, but it is the intervention of Cupid with his darts and torch that is more significant: the couple are falling in love- or are realising that they have already been in love for some time. As is typical of Boucher’s work, the females are depicted as rosy cheeked and chubby- in their teens perhaps- and nearly as plump, pink and beguiling as the tumble of cupids behind them.
Francois Boucher
Federico Cervelli
In Cervelli’s scene, Callisto very plainly welcomes Diana’s approaches, which are notably tender and erotic. There is also visible love shown in the second of Boucher’s canvases, where the couple are so rapt with each other that the four gambolling cupids in the tree above don’t manage to distract them at all. Gerrit van Honthorst’s depiction of the goddess and nymph is a truly beautiful moment of consummated love. It is sensitive, a masterwork and, of course, truly radical for its early seventeenth century date. In fact, even today, it might be hard to identify a painting to equal it.
Francois Boucher
Gerrit van Honthorst
Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre, 1745
French painter Pierre, meanwhile, went for a moment slightly later in the incident as passion starts to seize the couple. Callisto by no means need be seen as a passive victim of seduction- she can be as keen as the goddess, as in Spierincks’ depiction as well.
Karel Philips Spierincks
The upshot of the seduction by Zeus is tragedy, however. Diana’s entourage are sworn to virginity, which we may understand as meaning that they have forsworn sex with men. For example, in Pierre Louys’ Songs of Bilitis, a friend visits Bilitis and Mnasidika asking to borrow an olisbos (a leather dildo) before she visits her own girlfriend, Myrrhina (it seems the visitor does not wish to purchase one of her own in case her husband finds out). The exchange with Bilitis is as follows: “What do you wish of me? – That you lend me… – Speak. – I dare not name the object. – We have none. – Truly? – Mnasidika is a virgin…” (Bilitis, Part 2, ‘The Object’). William-Alphonse Bouguereau‘s 1878 Nymphaeum may capture some of the mood of this sapphic sodality, although Julius Leblanc Stewart’s ‘Hunting Nymphs’ may better portray the more active and independent nature of Diana’s troop.
Bouguereau, Nymphaeum
Julius Leblanc Stewart, Nymphes Chasseresses, 1898
In having sex with Zeus, Callisto breached the injunction of her mistress and the spirit of her sisterhood. In Callisto’s case, not only had she coupled with a man, she became pregnant. Even though her contact with Zeus was unwitting, she was banished from Diana’s court when her condition was (inevitably) revealed. This is a very harsh judgment, but anyone familiar with the justice of the Greek myths will know that the treatment of offenders was frequently excessive. For more on nymphs, see my dedicated Nymphology blog.
As a complement to my recently released book, The Great God Pan, this posting offers a selection of some of the key representations of the god by artists over the last five or six hundred years. There are various ways of classifying these images- by nationality, by artistic style or by time period (which I chose in the book).
However, what emerges from a review of the pictures is that there are certain regular themes you see repeatedly on the canvases: these are drink (Pan is known for his association with Dionysus and their love of a good debauch); following from this, sex with nymphs is a major interest of Pan and his accompanying satyrs and fauns. Chasing nymphs, drinking with nymphs and copulating with nymphs take up a lot of the time of the god and his entourage. In the moments left over from drink and nympholepsy, Pan (as creator of the pan pipes) enjoys music and dance. Lastly, but rather rarely, he can be glimpsed in rather less self-indulgent scenes, such as giving advice to needy nymphs. For the gallery here, I have chosen to organise the images on the basis of theme.
Pan the Tipsy
Wine is a natural product that fuels Pan’s passions. Artists have known for centuries that scenes of drinking are popular, amusing and readily understandable. There’s no need for complex mythology; everyone can appreciate when a “party got out of bounds” (to quote the B52s).
The Drunken Satyr, Rubens
Venus Inebriated by a Satyr, Annibale Carracci
Poussin, The Triumph of Pan
Pan the Sex Pest
As we can see in the Poussin canvas above, once the wine has loosened inhibitions, affairs can easily degenerate into a Bacchic orgy (although Pan scarcely needed much excuse to have sex with a pretty young girl). His retinue was composed of nymphs and of human women who were ecstatic devotees of the Dionysian cult. Love was, quite literally, all around. It wasn’t all wild rutting, though: the image by Gerard von Honthorst shows a delightfully tender and affectionate pair. It’s also worth noting the tendency of artists to emphasise the youth of the nymphs, often in contrast to a hoary and gnarled old Pan. In the picture by Romako, we definitely seem to have something of a ‘trophy girlfriend’ for a balding, mature satyr.
Annibale Caracci, The Cult of Priapus
Gerard von Honthorst, 1623
Mason Satyr, Carracci
von Stuck, Faun & Nymph
Faun & Nymph, Anton Romako
Pan with Nymph, Fritz Schuckmuller
Faun playing harp; Paul Paede
Very rarely, we get a glimpse of a more diverse Arcady, in which female satyrs and infants exist. We have seen saw plenty of rutting, but homelier scenes are harder to discover. One of the very earliest paintings of satyrs, Pietro di Cosimo’s The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus (1499) features children and a mother satyr breast-feeding her baby faun and Arthur Brown Davies’ On the Banks of the Arethusa, dating from 1910 (below), shows a young brother and sister faun, reassuring us that the species will not die out.
Pan, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn
The last couple of images lead us into Pan’s musical associations. When Syrinx, a nymph he was chasing, was changed into reeds to protect her from potential rape, the god was devastated and dismayed. The only way of keeping her close was to make pipes from the reeds and, ever since, Pan has been the god of poets and inspiration.
Bocklin, Faun und Amsel zu pfifend
Franz von Stuck, Blasender Faun
von Stuck, Dissonance
von Stuck, Pan
Bocklin, Pan im Kinderreigen
Aubrey Beardsley, Pan in the Woods
Book plate by Austin Spare
Rupert Bunny, Pastoral
Other Visions of Pan
A few artists, from time to time, have imagined Pan performing other roles or, more and more commonly from the late nineteenth century onwards, they have miniaturised him and made him less threatening.
Pan Consulted by Psyche, Alex Rothaug
Ernst Klimt, Pan counsels Psyche
Beardsley Pan reading to a woman by a Brook, 1898. Plate taken from The Studio magazine, volume 13, no 62 (London, 14th May 1898).
Makart, Pan & Flora
Karl Pluckebaum, Faun & Fairy
Charles Sims, The Little Faun; Royal Institution of Cornwall
Further Reading
I have created a gallery of some of the more adult and explicitly sexual images of Pan on a separate page, which can be visited by clicking here– the content can verge on the pornographic, so be warned. These works of art, and many more, alongside a very rich heritage of poetry and prose, are examined at length in my book The Great God Pan. I also now have a page dedicated to nymphs: for lots more information, please visit my nymphology blog.
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