Painting poetry: Byron’s Mazeppa

In this weekend’s two articles, I look at paintings of the poems of George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Lord Byron, known best for his gripping tales and the epic Don Juan. Today I concentrate on the story of Mazeppa, a Cossack who became Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks in the seventeenth century, and tomorrow I’ll cover several other poems including Don Juan.

Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709) was a figure in history who became a ‘Prince’ of the Holy Roman Empire, one of Europe’s largest landowners, Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks, and a patron of the arts. In spite of those achievements, he’s best remembered for his youthful indiscretion with Madam Falbowska at the Polish royal court, that almost led to his early death.

Over time, fact became embroidered in its retelling into the legend of an affair with a Countess married to an older Count, who punished the young Mazeppa (who also acquired an extra ‘p’ in the process) by strapping him naked to the back of a wild horse, and setting the horse loose. That legend gained sufficient credence for it to be recorded in Voltaire’s History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (1731), where it seems to have caught Lord Byron’s imagination when he was seeking inspiration for a narrative poem. What emerged from his pen was further embroidery, and proved almost instantly successful with some of the great painters of the day.

Byron’s Mazeppa, published in 1819, served as a page at the Court of King John II Casimir Vasa, and had an affair with a Countess Theresa. Much of the poem details the suffering and endurance of Mazeppa during his long journey on the back of the horse. Most significantly, Byron’s account was immediately translated into French.

Théodore Géricault was probably the first artist to be inspired by that French translation, and within a few months had painted his first study.

Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), Mazeppa (c 1820), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Géricault’s initial Mazeppa is a nocturne from about 1820. The wild horse has just swum across a river at night, and is now climbing up the bank. The viewer is almost guaranteed to wince in sympathy with the young Cossack’s cold and pain.

Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), Mazeppa (1823), oil on canvas, 28.5 x 21.5 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

In what must have been one of his last paintings, Géricault revisited the same scene in Mazeppa from 1823, the year before his death.

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Mazeppa on the Dying Horse (1824), oil on canvas, 22.5 x 31 cm, Kansallisgalleria, Ateneum, Helsinki, Finland. Wikimedia Commons.

The following year, when his friend and mentor Géricault died, the young Eugène Delacroix painted Mazeppa on the Dying Horse, showing the Cossack’s mount on its last legs.

Horace Vernet (1789–1863), Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826), oil on canvas, 97 x 136 cm, Calvet Museum, Avignon, France. Wikimedia Commons.

Two years later, in 1826, Horace Vernet painted Mazeppa and the Wolves, a different scene with an ingenious composition and the added danger of a pack of wolves lurking in ambush. This is one of many paintings showing a horse galloping with both fore and hind legs simultaneously in full extension, a position demonstrated later in the century by the British photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) to be fictional.

John Frederick Herring (1795–1865), Mazeppa Pursued by Wolves (after Horace Vernet) (1833), oil on canvas, 55.9 x 76.2 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by the Art Fund 1958), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2018), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/herring-mazeppa-pursued-by-wolves-after-horace-vernet-t00188

A former signwriter, John Frederick Herring’s talent was recognised during the 1820s, and he painted portraits of racehorses. I don’t know when he saw Vernet’s painting, but in 1833 Herring made a copy that’s now in the Tate: Mazeppa Pursued by Wolves (after Horace Vernet).

John Frederick Herring (1795–1865), Mazeppa Surrounded by Horses (after Horace Vernet) (c 1833), oil on canvas, 55.9 x 76.2 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by the Art Fund 1958), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2018), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/herring-mazeppa-surrounded-by-horses-after-horace-vernet-t00189

Herring also painted Mazeppa Surrounded by Horses (after Horace Vernet) at about the same time; if it too was a copy of a Vernet, then the original seems to have been lost. Mazeppa’s mount has here finally reached its journey’s end, and the Cossack is undoing his bonds.

Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888), Mazeppa Surrounded by Wild Horses (1846), lithograph on paper, 30.5 x 40.6 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Nathaniel Currier used Herring’s second painting as the basis for his lithograph of Mazeppa Surrounded by Wild Horses in 1846. This is one of a set of four that were apparently commercially successful.

Byron’s poem ends when Mazeppa wakes up in bed, after he had been rescued from unconsciousness by a “Cossack Maid”, who then tends his wounds.

Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856), A Young Cossack Woman Finds Mazeppa Unconscious on a Wild Horse (1851), oil on wood, 46 × 37 cm, Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France. Wikimedia Commons.

It wasn’t until 1851 that Théodore Chassériau anticipated this ending in A Young Cossack Woman Finds Mazeppa Unconscious on a Wild Horse. As in Byron’s poem, there are ravens flying overhead, waiting to feed on Mazeppa’s corpse.

Just as suddenly as paintings of Byron’s Mazeppa had appeared, so they vanished in the later nineteenth century.