Study for 'Calypso's Grotto'

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Artist: Francis Danby (Irish, 1793–1861)
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 5 × 7 1/2 inches (12.7 × 19.1 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Francis Danby, an Irish-born romantic painter, is best remembered for his oscillation between poetic and quasi-apocalyptic subject matter. This painting captures this stark dualism by portraying an evocative sunset and introspective glow characteristic of Danby’s works, while imparting a sense of the sublime through the steep incline of the coastal cliffs on the right.

Calypso, a classical archetype of the beautiful but deceptive woman, might allude to the expanding underbelly of manufacturing hubs in Britain. The contrast of the jagged cliffs with the calm ocean links the classical, embodied in Calypso, to the realities of the turbulent political situation in 1840s Europe. Danby harkens back to mythology nostalgically, while stressing the sense of unease and isolation resulting from rapid social and technological change.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.