Always thinking on hunting aspects that sometimes rivals my love of horses, art and all things creepy, I was looking in a book with a magnifying glass. Why do you ask? It's in the detail. I was looking at a hound, more so the hound's collar because it gives a very distinct three dimensional quality when you look at it even in a reproduced picture.
I then looked at the portrait in its entirety. The painting is cited under the School of Fontainebleau. It is called Diana (Diane de Poitiers) Hunting. c. 1550; Oil on canvas. The image itself is of a mostly naked blonde woman wielding a bow and arrow with a hound at her side.
I stared at it for a while.
I guess I could go on with the use of color, the brush strokes or the beauty and positioning of the model and hound but no.........
This was a loved woman and she loved to hunt which was how she shared her passion with her chosen one. Being a lady of the 1500s, I wondered what had happened to men and women in our day and age (or) people in love going hunting or anything in general? What happened? Where did it go? Has it become a mystical beast replaced by something else?
My wee brain couldn't wrap around it.
The following excerpt from the book is as follows:
"Within a few years of his marriage, Henry fell in love with Diane de Poitiers, twenty years his senior; she would openly be his mistress and political adviser for the rest of his life. Diane's sway over the king and her legendary beauty, unmarred by the passing decades, were naturally ascribed to sorcery. Gossip, however, credited the king and queen's ten children, three of whom succeeded to the throne, to Diane's practical-minded promptings.
The king and his lover shared a passion for hunting, and any references, however oblique, in any medium, to the sport or to Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, are a tribute to Diane de Poitiers. The royal palaces, including the court facade of Henry's rebuilt west wing of the Louvre, display a curious example of the Renaissance love for codes. The vertical bars of the king's initials are entwined with the queen's own initials, backward on the left, forward on the right; however, the letter C is the shape of the crescent moon, sacred to the goddess Diana, and the crossed royal ciphers form the letter D. " (Bonfante-Warren 15-16)
After reading this I could put aside the glaring ideology of adultry here based on the extramarital affairs. I thought this sounds about right. Hunting can be an outlet to be with the one you truly love. Of course, there are other endeavors one can pursue in a non-hunting realm to be with the one you love. It's probably better if you're both free then you don't hurt anyone.
I guess back in the good ole arranged marriage days maybe it couldn't be considered your fault if you fell in love with someone else, when you didn't really love the one you were with. Shared passion can be a defining mark on two people when they decide to 'commune together' or at least give it the old college try.
Besides.....no harm ever came from reading a book.
Written by W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
Literature Sited:
Bonfante-Warren, Alexandra. The Louvre. China: Barnes & Nobles, Inc, 2006. pp. 15-16 Print.
