Orpheus was the greatest bard, musician and poet of classical Greek myth. This weekend I show a selection of paintings of him, drawn from three main episodes: his ability to charm animals and birds with his singing, his tragic marriage, and his death. He was also known as the founder of what were known as Orphic Mysteries, religious rites derived from the events in his life and his prophecy, but I’ll keep well away from those.

Aelbert Cuyp’s Orpheus with Animals in a Landscape from about 1640 is one of at least two different paintings he made of the story. Here he has included a wide range of both domestic and exotic animals and birds, including a distant elephant, an ostrich, herons and wildfowl, although Orpheus is seen playing a violin.

Paulus Potter’s Orpheus and Animals from 1650 shows another wide range of different animal species, some of which were still not well-known at the time. These include a Bactrian camel (two humps), donkey, cattle, ox, wild pig, sheep, dog, goat, rabbit, lions, dromedary (one hump), horse, elephant, snake, deer, lizard, wolf, monkey and unicorn. Orpheus is now playing a harp.

Franz von Stuck is one of the few modern painters who followed the ancient Greek tradition of naming his figures, at least in some of his earlier work. Although readily recognisable by the prominence of his musical instrument, in Orpheus Charming the Savage Beasts with his Lyre (1891) his name is inscribed behind his back. The eclectic mixture of predators and prey includes several with long symbolic traditions: the flamingo painted so elegantly was believed by the ancient Egyptians to be a living representation of the god Ra.

In 1930, Anita Rée was commissioned to paint a mural for a girls’ secondary school in Hamburg, Germany, which she completed in October 1931: her joyous Orpheus and the Animals has been preserved, and is now part of a ballet school. This image shows but part of it, with Orpheus riding a mythical beast over the lintel of the door.

Henri Martin’s Orpheus in a Wood (1895) shows him wandering alone, a ghostly figure with just his lyre for company.

Orpheus is now best-known for his ill-fated marriage to Eurydice, which has featured in at least ten operas and ballets, and countless other art forms. The story known to most from the Renaissance onwards is based on that given by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, although that’s a reworking of an account first recorded by Virgil. Ovid links to this story through Hymen, the god of marriage, and the wedding of Eurydice to Orpheus. It was a wedding marred by tragedy: after the ceremony, as Eurydice was wandering in joy with Naiads in a meadow, she was bitten by a snake on her heel, and quickly died.

Orpheus was heart-broken, and mourned her so badly that he descended through the gate of Tartarus to Hades to try to get her released from death. He came across Persephone and her husband Hades, and pleaded his case before them. He said that, if he was unable to return with her to life on earth, then he too would stay in the Underworld with her.

He then played his lyre, making music so beautiful that those bound to eternal chores were forced to stop and listen: Tantalus, Ixion, the Danaids, even Sisyphus paused and sat on the rock which he was eternally trying to push uphill. The Fates themselves wept with emotion. Persephone summoned Eurydice, and let Orpheus take her back, on the strict understanding that at no time until he reached the earth above could he look back, or she would be taken back into the Underworld for ever.

The earliest painting in the post-classical era that I have been able to trace is Mantegna’s ceiling fresco in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, from 1468-74, but this superb panel by Jacopo da Sellaio, showing Orpheus, Eurydice and Aristaeus dates from just after that, in 1475-80. This is one panel of a series, now dispersed across continents.

It employs multiplex narrative to show the start of the story, with Orpheus left of centre, tending a flock of sheep, as his bride is bitten by the snake. At the far right, Orpheus, with the assistance of Aristaeus, puts the dead body of Eurydice in a rock tomb.

One of Poussin’s most famous narrative works, Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice (c 1650-53) shows Orpheus, with his lyre at the right, and Eurydice standing in white, as a snake approaches from the left. Poussin had a thing about snakes, and painted other landscapes with snakes threatening people, and his enigmatic Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake (c 1648). Here his normally peaceful rustic landscape is showing ominous signs of falling apart: the distant castle is on fire, with smoke billowing into the sky.

In Eurydice and the Serpent, a pastel from 1915, Ker-Xavier Roussel also shows them a few moments before the bite, with the snake seen on the ground in front of her.

Ary Scheffer’s moving painting of Orpheus Mourning the Death of Eurydice was one of his early works made in about 1814. The snake is still visible at the far left, and Orpheus cradles the limp body of his new bride, as he breaks down in grief. Scheffer’s handling of complex limb positions is masterful, with the symmetry of their right forearms, and the parallel of her left arm with his left leg. Orpheus’ lyre rests symbolically on the ground behind his left foot.

Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Orpheus in the Underworld from 1594 shows Orpheus walking and holding his lyre, to the left of centre. He’s approaching Hades and Persephone, who sit at the far left as king and queen of the Underworld.

Henri Regnault’s Orpheus in the Underworld (1865) appears to have been based more on the popular opera by Offenbach, first performed in 1858. Orpheus is seen at the left, his lyre in his hand, singing to the dead. Behind him, at the left edge, are two of the heads of Cerberus, who guards the entrance to the Underworld, and sat on the double throne at the upper right are Persephone and Hades themselves.

In tomorrow’s article, I’ll show their escape from the Underworld, and the tragic fate of Orpheus.