The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphrodite
Artist: François-Joseph Navez (Belgian, 1787-1869)
Date: 1829
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium
Description
The story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus is a chapter in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The nymph Salmacis fell in love with Hermaphroditus, Hermes and Aphrodite’s son. Hermaphroditus rejected her but Salmacis managed to outwit him in the water. Yet again Hermaphroditus rejected her, so Salmacis prayed to the gods that she would be united with him until the end of time. They fused into a hermaphroditic creature, with male and female characteristics.
François-Joseph Navez depicts the nymph and the object of her affection just before the metamorphosis. Hermaphroditus’s reticent gesture and the passionate embrace by the infatuated nymph constitute an ingenious and elegant ballet in an almost abstract play of lines.
