Dance to Music of Time. A Dance to the Music of Time is a painting by Nicolas Poussin in the Wallace Collection in London.
It was painted between about 1634 and 1636 as a commission for Giulio Rospigliosi, who according to Gian Pietro Bellori dictated its detailed iconography. The identity of the figures remains uncertain, with differing accounts.
The painting is well known for giving its name to the A Dance to the Music of Time novel cycle, though this title is first seen in a Wallace Collection catalogue of 1913. Before that it was given titles referring to the Four Seasons.
In the 1845 sale it was called La Danse des Saisons, ou l'Image de la vie humaine. Four figures, holding each other by the hand, dance in a circle, as Time plays a lyre on the right.
The scene is set in the early morning, with Aurora, goddess of dawn, preceding the chariot of Apollo the sun-god in the sky behind; the Hours accompany him and he holds a ring representing the Zodiac. According to Bellori, the subject was devised by Rospigliosi. The four dancers represented, beginning with the one at the back seen mostly from behind: Poverty, Labour, Riches, and Pleasure or Luxury. These represent a progression in human life, completed by Pleasure or Luxury leading to Poverty again. As the Four Seasons Poverty would be Autumn, Labour Winter, and so on. The suggestion of Anthony Blunt that, unusually for a group of the seasons, Autum
It was painted between about 1634 and 1636 as a commission for Giulio Rospigliosi, who according to Gian Pietro Bellori dictated its detailed iconography. The identity of the figures remains uncertain, with differing accounts.
The painting is well known for giving its name to the A Dance to the Music of Time novel cycle, though this title is first seen in a Wallace Collection catalogue of 1913. Before that it was given titles referring to the Four Seasons.
In the 1845 sale it was called La Danse des Saisons, ou l'Image de la vie humaine. Four figures, holding each other by the hand, dance in a circle, as Time plays a lyre on the right.
The scene is set in the early morning, with Aurora, goddess of dawn, preceding the chariot of Apollo the sun-god in the sky behind; the Hours accompany him and he holds a ring representing the Zodiac. According to Bellori, the subject was devised by Rospigliosi. The four dancers represented, beginning with the one at the back seen mostly from behind: Poverty, Labour, Riches, and Pleasure or Luxury. These represent a progression in human life, completed by Pleasure or Luxury leading to Poverty again. As the Four Seasons Poverty would be Autumn, Labour Winter, and so on. The suggestion of Anthony Blunt that, unusually for a group of the seasons, Autum
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