Apollo’s cloak billows like apocalyptic red smoke. Yet his face is serene. His attention, however, is not fixed on his lyre, the instrument with which he just trumped the pipe-playing satyr, Marsyas. Rather, he is dealing out this upstart’s punishment: being flayed alive. Marsyas screams in agony but it is Apollo’s eerie, unflustered sadism that makes this 1637 painting so disturbing.
Its creator, Jusepe de Ribera, carved an illustrious career out of excruciating scenes such as this. As with Marsyas, who recalls an inverted, crucified Christ, he twisted bodies into extreme, technically challenging poses. Yet the expertise never distracts from the drama.
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