Parnassus Profaned

Greece’s Mount Parnassus is supposed to be home to poetry, literature, and, by extension, learning, and Apollo is meant to hold court. But here, some of Apollo’s followers have removed their laurel crowns and moved on to pleasures shared more by animals than by muses. Even the trees no longer stand alone. Still, not everyone has become debauched; some point upwards toward loftier aims. The couple at left stand on a remnant of orderly classical architecture; they look like they’ve had enough and are ready to leave. Pegasus, the virtuous winged horse, has beaten them to the exit and heads for a rainbow in the sky.

A younger generation of artists undercut the orderly decorum of Renaissance artists exemplified by Raphael. The image echoes elements from earlier prints, including the clumps of trees in Marcantonio’s Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus.