Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Hyacinthus.
The gallery
The Death of Hyacinthos
Jean Broc, 1801
This Neoclassical canvas by Jean Broc, a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, captures the tragic climax of the myth: the Spartan youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, collapses dying in the god's arms after being struck on the head by the discus they hurled together. Apollo cradles the limp, idealized body of the boy with anguished tenderness, while the discus lies abandoned and Zephyrus, the jealous west wind who in one version blew the disc fatally astray, can be sensed in the charged air. Broc renders the pair in a cool, polished classicism that turns the lovers' grief into a study of grace and loss; from Hyacinthus's spilled blood Apollo will cause the hyacinth flower to spring, inscribing his lament upon its petals.
Apollo and Hyacinth (fresco, Palazzo Farnese)
Domenichino, 1603-1604
Painted by Domenichino for the Loggia del Giardino of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, this Baroque fresco shows Apollo bending over the fallen Hyacinthus, the beautiful Spartan prince whom the sun-god accidentally killed with a thrown discus. The composition emphasizes the sudden reversal from athletic play to mourning: the youth lies stricken on the ground as Apollo, the discus nearby, gestures over him. The episode, told most fully in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book X), was a favored subject for the Farnese decorative cycle, and Domenichino treats it with the clear, sculptural figures and balanced classicism that mark his early Roman manner.
The Death of Hyacinth (La morte di Giacinto)
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1752-1753
Now in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, this large Rococo canvas by Giambattista Tiepolo stages the death of Hyacinthus with theatrical splendor against a luminous sky and grand architecture. Apollo recoils in sorrow beside the slumped body of the youth, the fatal discus replaced in Tiepolo's reading by a tennis racquet and balls, an elegant updating that reflects the courtly sport of his own era. The painting is celebrated for its airy palette, sweeping diagonals, and the pathos with which the god confronts the loss of his beloved companion, whose blood will give rise to the flower that bears his name.
Apollo, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus Playing Music and Singing
Alexander Ivanov, 1831-1834
In this oil painting in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, the Russian master Alexander Ivanov shows Apollo at music with his two mortal favorites, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus, in a serene moment before tragedy. Rather than the youth's violent death, Ivanov chooses the idyll of companionship: the seated god teaches and plays while the beautiful Spartan Hyacinthus and the doomed Cyparissus listen and sing, bathed in a warm, gentle light. Drawing on classical sculpture yet animated by a lyrical Romantic feeling, the work presents Hyacinthus in the radiant bloom of youth that made him beloved of Apollo, lending poignancy to the fate that awaits him.