

Gage also points out the similarity between the last two lines of Turner's Ode and Milton's description of Eve plucking the Apple in Paradise Lost ix, thus linking the theme with the Biblical Fall. The dragon is Ladon, brother of the dragon slain by Jason almost merging with the mountain ridge, it embodies the elements of fire and earth. Ruskin points out that two of them, Ægle and Erytheia, represent Brightness and Blushing (the other two are Hestia the spirit of the Hearth, and Arethusa, the Ministering spirit) while the fruit they guard is Juno's fruit, the wealth of the earth.

The Hesperides, the nymphs of sunset and daughters of night, would represent air. 19 and 115 ), in part an alchemical allegory. In the sources the bridal feast was that of Peleus and Thetis, not Psyche, who was introduced, Gage suggests, as a symbol of mercurial water, this picture being, it would seem, like Jason and Apollo killing Python The apple chosen by Discord and claimed at the bridal feast was that eventually awarded by Paris. 1807 but may well, because of the relationship to this picture exhibited early in 1806, have been begun a year or two earlier (XCVII–83 and 83 verso). There are also versions of the first two lines in the ‘Windsor, Eaton’ sketchbook, which is usually dated c. Love felt the wound and Troy's foundations shook.' Of future woes: and then her choice preferred With vengfull pleasure pleas'd the Goddess heard Proffered the fatal fruit and fear'd thy wrathful ire Mad with neglect and envious of the fair,įierce as the noxious blast thou cleav'd the skiesĪnd sought the hesperian Garden's golden prize.Īw'd by the presence slumberd at his post Unask'd at Psyche's bridal feast to share, No verses were included in the catalogue of this the first exhibition of the British Institution, but there is a related ‘Ode to Discord’ in the Verse Notebook belonging to C.W.M. Turner seems to have detached the motif from its particular locality and, as has been pointed out by Lawrence Gowing in an unpublished lecture, transformed the detail of a clump of trees on the spur into the guardian Dragon. It also appears in the large unfinished watercolour of, perhaps, The Great St. 61), and in The Vision of Jacob's Ladder, perhaps begun at about this time but completely reworked later (No. The prominent mountainous spur in the background also appears, with slight modifications, in Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, shown at the R.A. There are a number of sketches with some relation to the picture in the ‘Hesperides’ (1) sketchbook, though none for the whole composition (XCIII-1, 3 (the same background, but the figures seem to be for another subject), 3 verso (the dragon, again with different figures), 8–10). 321 n.37 Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. Farington Diary 16 February and 5 April 1806 Ruskin 18 (1903–12, xiii, pp.

Turner Bequest 1856 (66, ‘The Garden of the Hesperides’ 7'2" × 5'1") transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.Įxh. The Goddess of Discord choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides Exh.
