The Triumph of Painting on Parnassus

A significant figure of the Italian Baroque, Testa was a prolific etcher, often finding more success in his printed work than in his paintings. In the complicated iconography of this print, Testa gives idealized form to his preferred topics: the creative process and the intellectual nature of the painting profession. On Mount Parnassus, home of the muses, the chariot of Painting enters into a scene that illustrates the struggles and passions the artist must conquer and express, particularly the extremes of pleasure and pain, as represented by the pair of lovers and the figure attacked by serpents at left. Painting is crowned by the Three Graces as she rolls over the figure of Envy under the chariot’s wheels, passing underneath a triumphal arch of the rainbow bearing the figure of Iris, to greet the muses at right.