Joanny DOMER (1833 - id., 1896) Diana's triumph

This oil on canvas by Joanny Domer is a preparatory work for the ceiling decoration of the Salon Carnot at the Rhône Prefecture, entitled Le Triomphe de la déesse Diane (The Triumph of the Goddess Diana).

The iconography of the scene is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the goddess Diana, accompanied by her twin brother Apollo, is about to kill the young hunter Actaeon, whom she has transformed into a stag.

Joanny Domer's virtuoso execution of the canvas gives the composition its dynamic quality. At the very top is the god Apollo, adorned on his sun-drenched chariot, accompanied by his horses.

The goddess Diana is on the left of the composition. We can identify her by her usual attribute: the crescent moon. On the right, we see poor Actaeon, transformed into a stag, already attacked by one of the goddess's nymphs and ready to be devoured by his own hounds in pursuit.

The work is both poetic and symphonic. Everything works together to reinforce the dramatic effect and make the subject explicit : a battle in which Light prevails over shadow, good over evil and civilization over the state of nature.

For this preparatory work, Domer drew his inspiration from the painter Eugène Delacroix, and learned from the décor of the Galerie Apollon in the Louvre, entitled Apollon, Conqueror of the Serpent Python.