阿波羅和巨蟒

When he first exhibited this painting Turner appended lines adapted from the Hymn to Apollo by the Greek poet, Callimacchus. That text recounted the sun god Apollo’s quest to build a temple for his oracle at Delphi, which first necessitated that he overcome the giant dragon, Python, which lived nearby.

Turner interprets Apollo’s slaughter of the creature as a conquest of good over evil. He shows it, in pictorial terms, as the triumph of light over darkness. However, he also includes a smaller snake emerging from the dragon’s wound, perhaps hinting at the inescapable cyclical regeneration of brutal natural forces.