Artistic Analysis Essay

      Mercury and Argus (1659) is an oil on canvas painting by Diego Velazquez that shows Mercury preparing to kill Argus after lulling him to sleep. Diego Velazquez -- who lived from 1599 to 1660 -- was a Spanish painter, the leading painter in the court of King Philip IV, and the most prominent painter of the Spanish Golden Age -- a period in which the arts and literature thrived in Spain. (“Diego Velázquez.”).

      Both Ovid and Velazquez depict the same general events: Mercury, wearing a winged hat, prepares to kill Argus -- who sits on rocky ground and has been lulled to sleep by songs from Mercury’s pan flute and his stories. Io, having been held captive by Argus, roams nearby.

      Velazquez diverges from Ovid's mythological description by painting the scene in the style of realism: he paints Argus and Mercury as mortal men in contemporary clothing instead of a hundred-eyed giant and a god, and he paints Io as a brown cow instead of a shining white heifer. His realistic depiction of Mercury and Argus may reflect the style of picaresque literature, which flourished during the Spanish Golden Age; picaresque art tends to use plain and frank language and centers around mischievous and appealing characters from lower social classes. Thus, Velazquez converts Ovid’s supernatural description of a god about to slay a giant into a mundane depiction of a mischievous man about to kill another man.

      Moreover, while Ovid focuses on Mercury's murderous intent, Velazquez focuses on the effect of Mercury’s music on Argus. In the scene, Ovid adopts Mercury’s point of view and describes how Mercury strengthens Argus’s sleep with his wand and draws his sword to kill him. In contrast, Velazquez directs the viewer’s attention to Argus by using a style known as tenebrism -- which consists of sharp contrasts between light and dark. Although the contrasts of light and dark in his painting appear less noticeable than other paintings using tenebrism, he paints Argus -- the focus of the painting -- brighter than the background. While Ovid describes Mercury with a curved sword capable of decapitation, Velazquez paints a rapier -- a 17th century Spanish sword -- in Mercury’s hand, and obscures the weapon with a darker hue; he depicts Mercury’s pan flute more clearly, since he aims to focus on music as a theme. Velazquez created Mercury and Argus and three other mythological paintings to decorate the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, because King Philip IV would be receiving King Louis XIV’s ambassador in the Hall of Mirrors to negotiate a marriage between Philip’s daughter and Louis XIV. Mercury and Argus and another painting both depict scenes concerning music, while the other two paintings depict scenes with love. (Portus Perez, 2007). Thus, his court’s political affairs may have influenced Velazquez to focus on music rather than violence in this scene. Overall, the political events of his court and the widespread use of realism may have caused him to focus on different aspects of the scene than Ovid.