Gods and stories

Cornelis van Haarlem

The Fall of the Titans

1588–90

Oil on canvas, 239 × 307 cm · SMK, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

A Dutch Mannerist showpiece of tumbling nude bodies by a Haarlem painter whose circle was among the first to work from nude models. No commission is recorded.

• Bought in 1621 by King Christian IV of Denmark.
• Look at the bodies falling from light into darkness and piling up, mouths open and hands raised.
• Foreground figures frame the ones behind and pull the eye deep into space.
• Butterflies and insects cover the figures’ groins, which the museum links to Hell.
• Long in storage; restored and rehung in 1988.

The Titans, the generation before the Olympians, were defeated by Zeus and thrown down into Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain