The bottom line: it’s actually all about the clothes and has nothing whatsoever to do with marital infidelity. Good call on that from some of the comment writers.
The gentleman is Odysseus; the lady is Nausicca. At a late stage in his journey, Odysseus finds himself shipwrecked. He makes it to shore, but he loses everything, even the clothes on his back. Nausicca comes along with her servants; it’s a clothes-washing trip to the water, since the washing machine won’t be invented for about another 2,400 years. Hoping to get help, Odysseus comes out of the wood; noticing he’s stark naked, Nausicca’s servants show incredible loyalty to their mistress by running in panic. Nausicca, more composed and more practical, lets Odysseus put on some of the things they brought to launder. Odysseus is OK with that, he’s cross-dressed before in other places. Anyway, Nausicca arranges for him to take shelter with her parents, Alcinous and Arete, who just happen to be the rulers of the place. Alcinous, the king, lends Odysseus ships and he finally makes it back to Ithaca, his home.
Oddly enough, even though Nausicaa is young, pretty, and apparently quite willing, Odysseus doesn’t make a play for her. No one quite knows why Homer handled the story that way. It is sometimes regarded as the first tale of unrequited love in Western literature.
So it would seem that what Tischbein had in mind was the magic moment with Odysseus has just gotten dressed and Nausicaa isn’t feasting his eyes on his nude body any more. To give you an idea of how exciting his life was, his autobiography, written when he was about 60, wasn’t published until about thirty years after his death and hasn’t seen print since. He was a Tischbein of the artistic Tischbein family and was a friend of Goethe. If you lived in that era and you weren’t a friend of Goethe, you weren’t worth anyone’s attention. Unfortunately, some people weren’t worth much attention even though they were friends with Goethe.
The bottom line: it’s actually all about the clothes and has nothing whatsoever to do with marital infidelity. Good call on that from some of the comment writers.
The gentleman is Odysseus; the lady is Nausicca. At a late stage in his journey, Odysseus finds himself shipwrecked. He makes it to shore, but he loses everything, even the clothes on his back. Nausicca comes along with her servants; it’s a clothes-washing trip to the water, since the washing machine won’t be invented for about another 2,400 years. Hoping to get help, Odysseus comes out of the wood; noticing he’s stark naked, Nausicca’s servants show incredible loyalty to their mistress by running in panic. Nausicca, more composed and more practical, lets Odysseus put on some of the things they brought to launder. Odysseus is OK with that, he’s cross-dressed before in other places. Anyway, Nausicca arranges for him to take shelter with her parents, Alcinous and Arete, who just happen to be the rulers of the place. Alcinous, the king, lends Odysseus ships and he finally makes it back to Ithaca, his home.
Oddly enough, even though Nausicaa is young, pretty, and apparently quite willing, Odysseus doesn’t make a play for her. No one quite knows why Homer handled the story that way. It is sometimes regarded as the first tale of unrequited love in Western literature.
So it would seem that what Tischbein had in mind was the magic moment with Odysseus has just gotten dressed and Nausicaa isn’t feasting his eyes on his nude body any more. To give you an idea of how exciting his life was, his autobiography, written when he was about 60, wasn’t published until about thirty years after his death and hasn’t seen print since. He was a Tischbein of the artistic Tischbein family and was a friend of Goethe. If you lived in that era and you weren’t a friend of Goethe, you weren’t worth anyone’s attention. Unfortunately, some people weren’t worth much attention even though they were friends with Goethe.