The Origin of the Milky Way

Juno wakes as a baby is held towards her breast. Milk sprays upwards, while bodies, cloth and clouds turn through the surrounding space. In the ancient myth, the spilled milk creates the Milky Way. The child is Hercules, son of Jupiter and a mortal woman. Jupiter hopes that drinking the goddess’s milk will make his son immortal. Juno’s surprise gives the story its sudden movement. Her peacocks and Jupiter’s eagle help identify the two gods. Tintoretto, a Venetian painter, made the picture around 1575. The composition we see is incomplete. About a third was cut from the bottom before the eighteenth century. A later copy records a figure of Earth and flowers in the lost section, where falling milk had another consequence. Follow the diagonals of the surviving figures rather than expecting a settled ground beneath them. The picture’s light, foreshortened bodies and flying draperies make the myth happen overhead. Its missing lower section explains why the action seems to continue beyond the edge.