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DEATH
OF ADONIS
1993
203.2 x 203.2
Durand's DEATH OF ADONIS was unveiled at the Accademia Italiana, London, January 13th 1993. The picture was inspired by Sebastiano del Piombo's work of the same title, which was damaged by the bomb attack on the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence in May 1993. Less than a month before the bombing, Durand had visited the Uffizi and of all the paintings he enjoyed that time, he was particularly drawn to Sebastiano's Death of Adonis. His subsequent re-interpretation of the painting led to a correspondence with Cecil Gould regarding the authorship of the picture and the theory that the hand of Giorgione was at work with Sebastiano.
Durand derived his inspiration from Ovid:
"Thus the goddess warned, and through the air, drawn by the swans, she took her way; but the boy's manly courage would not brook advice. It chanced his hounds, following a well marked trail, roused up a wild boar from his hiding place; and, as he was rushing from the wood, the young grandson of Cinyras pierced him with a glancing blow. Straightway the fierce boar with his curved snout routed out the spear, wet with his blood and pursued the youth, now full of fear and running for his life; deep in the groin he sank his long tusks, and stretched the dying boy upon the yellow sand. Born throughout the middle air by flying swans on her light car Cytherea had not yet come to Cyprus, when she heard afar the groans of the dying youth and turned her white swans to go to him. And when from the high air she saw him lying lifeless and weltering in his blood, she leaped down, tore both her garments and her hair and beat her breasts with cruel hands. Reproaching fate, she said: "But all shall not be in your power. My grief, Adonis shall have an enduring monument, and each passing year in memory of your death shall give an imitation of my grief. But your blood shall be changed to a flower..."
Ovid Metamorphoses X, 708 - 728
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