REIMAGINING MYTHOLOGY

APELLES AND CAMPASPE

Apelles had the reputation in antiquity for being the greatest of painters. According to Pliny's Natural History of 77 A.D., Alexander commissioned Apelles to paint a portrait of his favorite concubine, Campaspe. The story illustrates art's transformative powers. The episode occasioned an apocryphal exchange that was reported in Pliny's work: "Seeing the beauty of the nude portrait, Alexander saw that the artist appreciated Campaspe (and loved her) more than he. And so, Alexander kept the portrait but presented Campaspe to Apelles." Campaspe’s biographer Robin Lane Fox describes this bequest as "the most generous gift of any patron and one which would remain a model for patronage and painters on through the Renaissance." Apelles also used Campaspe as a model for his most celebrated painting of Aphrodite "rising out of the sea", the iconic Venus Anadyomene, "wringing her hair, and the falling drops of water formed a transparent silver veil around her form".