#mythological tale

[mythologypaintings]

Danae Watching the Building of the Brazen Tower

Artist: Edward Burne-Jones (British, 1833–1898)

Date: 1872

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Description

In the 1870s Burne-Jones and his friend the designer, poet, and socialist William Morris collaborated on illustrations for Morris’s The Earthly Paradise (1868–70). The epic poem, composed of mythological tales from ancient and Nordic sources, served as an inspiration for Burne-Jones throughout his life. The story of Danaë is taken from the chapter “The Doom of King Acrisius.” Fearful of an oracle’s warning that he would die by the hand of his grandson, as yet unborn, the king built a tower “wrought of brass most cunningly” in which to imprison his daughter, Danaë. The god Zeus breached her “living tomb” and impregnated Danaë in a shower of gold; later her son, Perseus, unwittingly slew his grandfather. Here Danaë, already seemingly incarcerated in the narrow courtyard, watches the construction of her prison, her future foreshadowed by the rosebush whose blooms are confined in a cage.