Calumny of Apelles c. 1500 - 1506

print, engraving

landscape illustration sketch

print

pen sketch

sketch book

personal sketchbook

sketchwork

ink drawing experimentation

pen-ink sketch

sketchbook drawing

storyboard and sketchbook work

italy

sketchbook art

engraving

"Calumny of Apelles" is a woodcut created by Girolamo Mocetto around 1500-1506. The print, which is now in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, depicts a scene from a classical tale of slander and false accusation, wherein a group of figures leads a naked man to the judgement of a seated figure while another figure points and accuses. This artwork is part of the wider tradition of Renaissance prints, which utilized classical stories as a means of exploring human nature. Mocetto's "Calumny" is a powerful example of the artistic expression of this tradition, depicting a scene of injustice and human weakness.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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Calumny of Apelles combines ideals of Renaissance art with an early view of the square outside the church of Saints Giovanni and Paolo in Venice. It responds to a challenge made by the 15th-century theorist Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) that artists should recreate a lost work by the Greek painter Apelles. Here, a king, advised by Suspicion and Ignorance, sits in judgment with the ears of a donkey. Led by Envy and followed by Deception and Treachery, Calumny (Slander) drags Innocence before the king. After the Piazza San Marco, this was the most important square at a time when the Republic's military confidence was at its peak. Andrea Verrocchio's (c. 1435-88) equestrian statue of Venetian mercenary captain Bartolommeo Colleoni (c. 1395/1400-75) was unveiled in the piazza in 1495, the year the plaza was paved.