''A Dance to the Music of Time'' is a painting by

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...

in the

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along ...

in London. It was painted between and 1636 as a commission for Giulio Rospigliosi (later

Pope Clement IX Pope Clement IX ( la, Clemens IX; it, Clemente IX; 28 January 1600 – 9 December 1669), born Giulio Rospigliosi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 20 June 1667 to his death in December 1669. Biography Ear ...

), who according to

Gian Pietro Bellori Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian painter and antiquarian, but, more famously, a prominent biographer of artists of the 17th century, equiva ...

dictated its detailed iconography. The identity of the figures remains uncertain, with differing accounts. The painting is well known for giving its name to the ''

A Dance to the Music of Time ''A Dance to the Music of Time'' is a 12-volume '' roman-fleuve'' by English writer Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in En ...

'' novel cycle, though this title is first seen in a Wallace Collection catalogue of 1913. Before that it was given titles referring to the Four Seasons. In the 1845 sale it was called ''La Danse des Saisons, ou l'Image de la vie humaine''. The

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

lists it with three different French titles.

Description

There are four figures, holding each other by the hand, dance in a circle, as Time plays a

lyre The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yo ...

on the right. The scene is set in the early morning, with

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

, goddess of dawn, preceding the chariot of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

the sun-god in the sky behind; the Hours accompany him and he holds a ring representing the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The path ...

. According to

Bellori Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian painter and antiquarian, but, more famously, a prominent biographer of artists of the 17th century, equiva ...

, the subject was devised by Rospigliosi. The four dancers represented, beginning with the one at the back seen mostly from behind: Poverty, Labour, Riches, and Pleasure or Luxury. These represent a progression in human life, completed by Pleasure or Luxury leading to Poverty again. As the Four Seasons Poverty would be Autumn, Labour Winter, and so on. The suggestion of Anthony Blunt that, unusually for a group of the seasons, Autumn/Poverty at the rear of the group was male is now generally accepted, and the museum now describe him as

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

. This follows the story invented by Boitet de Frauville in his ''Les Dionysiaques'' that, responding to complaints from the Seasons and Time,

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

gave the world Bacchus and his wine in order to compensate for the miserable living conditions mortals must endure.

André Félibien André Félibien (May 161911 June 1695), ''sieur des Avaux et de Javercy'', was a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France. Biography Félibien was born at Chartres. At the age of fourteen he went to Pari ...

, the friend and biographer of Poussin, explained the picture in the same terms, except that where Bellori identified Summer with Luxury, Félibien said that it represented Pleasure. These identifications are disputed by Malcolm Bull, at least as the original intention. He traces the iconography of the painting to the Late Greek poet

Nonnus Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Theba ...

, reflected in the ''Hymne de l'Automme'' of

Pierre de Ronsard Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a " prince of poets". Early life Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of ...

. Nonnus' descriptions of the four seasons, as translated into French, are closely followed by Poussin: "on the left is Spring, with a garland of roses in her hair; at the back is Autumn, whose hair has been cropped by the winds but whose brow is wreathed with olive branches; Winter is next, with her bound hair and shadowed face, and at the front is Summer, dressed in white with ears of corn in the braids of her hair." Bacchus himself appears, in his double aspect as a young and old figure, in the

herma A herma ( grc, ἑρμῆς, pl. ''hermai''), commonly herm in English, is a sculpture with a head and perhaps a torso above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height. Hermae we ...

at left. Bull suggests that Rospigliosi, an intellectual and author with a taste for

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

, invented the other interpretation "during or after its completion", while Ingamells feels that "Poussin was not unduly concerned with the precise identification of the figures". There are several pentimenti, including the removal of a second, larger, tree on the right between Winter/Labour and Time. The painting is in generally good condition, but has been retouched in places, including over the repair of a large L-shaped tear running right through the central group.

Anthony Powell

At the start of

Anthony Powell Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work '' A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English. Powell ...

's series of novels named after the painting, the narrator, Nicolas Jenkins, reflects on it in the first two pages of ''

A Question of Upbringing ''A Question of Upbringing'' is the opening novel in Anthony Powell's '' A Dance to the Music of Time'', a twelve-volume cycle spanning much of the 20th century. Published in 1951, it begins the story of a trio of boys — Nicholas Jenkins (th ...

'':

These classical projections, and something from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin's scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure, stepping slowly, methodically sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.

Provenance

It passed from the Rospigliosi family to the Joseph Fesch collection in 1806, when it was taken to France for a period. It was then bought, along with several other paintings, by

Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford Captain Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford KG (22 February 1800 – 25 August 1870) was an English aristocrat and sometime politician who spent his life in France devoted to collecting art. From birth to 1822 he was styled V ...

, in the great Fesch sale in Rome in 1845. It then passed to his son, Sir Richard Wallace. It was exhibited in the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester 1857.Ingamells, 311

Notes

References

*Bull, Malcolm, ''The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods'', Oxford UP, 2005, *Ingamells, John, ''The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures, Vol III, French before 1815'', London: Wallace Collection (1989) (online via museum - PDFs under "Images" tab) * "Wallace"
Wallace Live - catalogue entry

Description

Anthony Powell

Provenance

Notes

References

Further reading