Donato Creti (Cremona, 1671 - Bologna, 1749)
Achilles Entrusted to Chiron, 1714 ca.
oil on canvas; inv. P 38
provenance: Bequest of Marcantonio Collina Sbaraglia to the Senate, 1744
Thetis’ maids entrusted Achilles to the centaur Chiron, who
would be responsible for the youth’s education. Chiron was
particularly skilled at medicine and music, and had already been
charged with the education of Hercules and Jason.
The chained figure in the background could be Prometheus (for whose
liberty Chiron was to sacrifice his life) or Peleus, who was chained to
a rock before marrying Thetis.
According to Creti’s biographer, Giovan Pietro Zanotti, the
winged putto (a sort of a guardian spirit or Genius) “incites
[Achilles] and accompanies him.” Zanotti especially admired
the young woman in the foreground, with her delicately illuminated
body, half nude, with her back to the viewer. Color rather than drawing
is the highlight of this composition, helping to model and
describe the bodies and to modulate the depth and the folds of the
draperies.
The rich and balanced range of chromatic gradations is built up using a
few basic colors, carefully measured in their application and
brushwork, thus harmonizing the figures and landscape. Each figure is
finished according to its importance and function in the
scene. Achilles’ Genius, for example,
appears meticulously refined and impressively three-dimensional.
