THE DIANA OF THE CERNE GIANT AND ORION, Ottawa artist, André Durand’s dramatic, new allegory, based on The Diana of Versailles, the celebrated masterpiece of Roman sculpture in the Louvre, portrays a fit Princess Diana, alert, with flashing eyes that suggest an intent to kill. Durand’s goddess Diana of the Cerne Giant and Orion looks dangerous and Jewish, like an Old Testament heroine… maybe Judith.
THE DIANA OF THE CERNE GIANT AND ORION Durand’s dramatic, new allegory, based on The Diana of Versailles, the celebrated masterpiece of Roman sculpture in the Louvre, portrays a fit Princess Diana, alert, with flashing eyes that suggest an intent to kill. Durand’s goddess Diana of the Cerne Giant and Orion looks dangerous and Jewish, like an Old Testament heroine… maybe Judith. The allegory depicts Princess Diana as the Roman goddess Diana hunting with her magnificent hound and her familiar hind on a hill near the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, England. In the background of Durand’s allegory, behind Diana is the Cerne Abbas Giant, the world famous hill figure, a turf-cut outline filled with chalk that depicts a large naked man with an erection that points toward the horse-head nebula in the constellation of Orion, just above the horizon. Durand sees the Cerne Giant as an Iron Age reflector telescope like the one developed in the early 17th century by Niccola Zucchi and perfected later by Sir Isaac Newton. The hound in Diana of the Cerne Giant and Orion is André Durand’s whippet, Rinaldo doubled in size to become a greyhound in the picture. When the artist was walking Rinaldo in Kensington Gardens he bumped into Princess Diana a few times. Every time he did, the princess would look at Rinaldo-she never touched him- and observe, “ That dog is too skinny, André. He needs more food”. Durand always replied, “Diana, whippets are supposed to be skinny”.
Size: 3475px × 3500px
Photo credit: © Durand Digital / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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