“Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid” or “The Enchanted Castle”
This grand oil on canvas landscape is by the French Baroque artist, Claude Lorrain, from 1664 and is titled “Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid” or “The Enchanted Castle”. This piece tells the ancient Roman story, Apuleius’ Golden Ass (books IV-VI, which contains the love story of Psyche and Cupid. Lorrain painted this as a commission work for Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, who was of ancient Roman nobility, and who commissioned many pieces from Lorrain during the later years of his career.
During this period, landscapes were just becoming respectable subjects for art, and although Lorrain often depicted people in his art, the landscape was really the subject he was most interested in. Lorrain was known to have said that he charged for his landscapes but gave the figures for free.
Through Lorrain’s paintings, we see the myths of Europe as part of the landscape. The myths intertwine gracefully in the ruins, rocks, cliffs, and forests. This piece was extremely popular in 19th century England and was the inspiration for John Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale.” You will find an excerpt from the poem at the end…
This same myth was discussed relatively recently with Antonio Canova’s sculpture, “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss”. However, the scene depicted in “The Enchanted Castle” is from near the beginning of the story and goes as follows: Psyche is so beautiful (much to Venus’s dismay), that suitors are afraid to ask for her hand. Her parents get distressed and ask the god Apollo for help. Apollo tells Psyche’s parents to get her ready as if to be sacrificed and leave her on a cliff exposed to the elements, which they grudgingly do (and which is depicted here). and after they leave her on a cliff, Psyche is transported to a wood where she spends her time with an invisible suitor who only visits her at night and who she is not allowed to look upon. The invisible suitor ends up being Cupid, Venus’s son, and the great romance between Cupid and Psyche begins.
Excerpt from “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats:
‘You know the Enchanted Castle it doth stand
Upon a Rock on the border of a Lake
Nested in Trees, which all do seem to shake
From some old Magic like Urganda’s snow.
O Phoebus that I had thy sacred word
To shew this Castle in some dreaming wise
Unto my friend while sick and ill he lies …
You know it well enough, where it doth seem
A mossy place, a Merlin Hall, a dream …
See what is coming from the distance thin
A golden galley all in silken trim …
O that our dreamings all of sleep or wake
Would all their colours from the Sunset take
Rather than shadow our world’s daytime
Into the void of night … ‘
“Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid” or “The Enchanted Castle“ is currently on display at the National Gallery in London, England.
For more on Claude Lorrain, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
