Diana and Callisto

Callisto struggles on the ground while other women pull away her clothes. At the side, Diana directs the scene. The gathering around a bathing place has become an act of exposure and exclusion. Callisto was one of the companions of Diana, the goddess of the hunt, whose followers were expected to remain chaste. Jupiter, king of the gods, had deceived her by taking Diana’s appearance. Her pregnancy is now discovered, and Diana expels her from the group. The story comes from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Titian painted this for Philip II of Spain between 1556 and 1559 as a companion to Diana and Actaeon. The water and distant landscape help connect the two pictures, but each shows a different person caught under the goddess’s authority. In the reproduction, follow the reaching arms and the slipping cloth around Callisto. Titian’s loose brushwork lets some contours dissolve into their surroundings. That restless surface gives the figures’ actions a sense of movement while keeping Callisto’s distress at the centre.