von stuck

I came across this rather excellent video on YouTube by the band Faun. Very entertaining: like much of the rest of their work. To watch and listen, click on Hymn to Pan.

Listen now, Great Pan he calls us
From the green wood in his grove
‘neath the waxing moon above us
Hear his clear flute sweet and low
Follow in the dance he’s leading
Circle ’round the fire’s glow
Come and drink the wine he pours us

From the tangled vines that grow

Listen now and I shall follow
Out of the mid-wood’s twilight
Into the meadow’s dawn
Ivory limbed and brown eyed
Flashes the Faun

He skips through the copses singing
And his shadow dances along
And I know not which I should follow
Shadow or Song

O Hunter, snare me his shadow
O Nightingale, catch me his strain
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain

The video was filmed in Cornwall, at the Trippet stone circle on Bodmin Moor, Mawgan Porth wood, Dozmary Pool, and at Holywell Bay.

The song’s a reminder that, although the early twentieth century may have seen a peak in references to Pan, invocations and depictions, it shouldn’t be supposed that the impulse generating that cultural outburst has disappeared. It may have waned, but the inspiration still flows, awaiting its next flowering. The cult of Pan is a cult of nature and, as such, it is only to be expected that it will wax and wane, flourish and die back. Hence, in the illustration above, the piping faun/ satyr accompanies the faery of spring amidst blossom and new animal life.

Satyr & Nymph, Franz Xavier Bergmann, Vienna

Unavoidably linked to growth, of course, is copulation and the creation of new life. As I have discussed already, a regular feature of the imagery and myths of Pan is the pursuit of- and sex with- nymphs. Equally, whilst the god may be a hoary older male, the nymph is frequently a female who’s pubescent or barely older, a symbol it seems of the god’s eternal and undiminishing vitality and the constant renewal and rebirth in nature (or maybe just some older painters’ fantasies….)

What fascinates me, though, is the frequent recurrence of the image of the nymph on the satyr’s shoulders. She may be carried- she may even be whipping him like a horse. The symbolism here is clearly one of control or domination by the female over the male, a forcible subjugation of the uncontrolled male desire of the faun. This reversal of the more conventional role may suggest that the compulsion of the faun to chase the nymph is a burden, a physical imperative which he is powerless to resist. He may appear to be the aggressor, the sex pest, but he is helpless before the forces of nature. Perhaps, even, there are limits on divinity: all must bow to the inexorable might of the natural world.

Bocklin, *A Nymph on Pan’s Shoulders*, 1874

Franz von Stuck’s image above both confirms and subverts the standard iconography. The nixe (water spirit) is a small breasted young girl, but the pose of the pair suggests trust, co-operation and happiness together. It’s a much more positive and life affirming image than the rather depressing scenes of energetic rutting we often encounter. As for the final two sculptures, we return to more explicitly sexual scenes, but leave the nymph very much in charge, regulating all aspects of the encounter. Indeed, in the first example, you can’t help wonder if she’s becoming a bit distracted by those grapes…

I also now have a page dedicated to nymphs: for lots more information, please visit my nymphology blog.

Austrian bronze of faun and nymph, c.1920

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).

*Venus Inebriated by a Satyr,* Annibale Carracci

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.

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.

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.