Rijksmuseum puts the spotlight on Roman poet's epic

Ovid's epic poem, written more than 2,000 years ago, has been the source for countless Roman, Greek and modern era paintings, statues and literary works.

More than 80 of them -- from more than 50 museums around the world -- have been assembled by the Rijksmuseum and the Borghese gallery in Rome for this exhibition.

The exhibition, said the museum, would reveal the work's "passion, desire, lust, jealousy and cunning".

"Everybody to whom we said we want to make an exhibition about "Metamorphoses" was immediately enthusiastic, because it's a theme that has inspired artists over so many centuries, and there was never really an exhibition about it," Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits told AFP.

There are paintings from Italian master Caravaggio and the Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte, while a 17th-century marble sculpture, Bernini's Sleeping Hermaphroditus, is one of the centrepieces.

Ovid's 15-book "Metamorphoses" tells the story of the world from its creation until the death of Emperor Julius Caesar through myths.

The Sleeping Hermaphroditus tells how nymph Salmacis falls in love with Hermaphroditus and implores the gods to unite the two. Their bodies become one, both man and woman.

"It's a very modern idea in itself, with its fluidity of gender," said Frits Scholten, head of sculpture at the the Rijksmuseum.

"But at the same time, it's very ancient, which makes it all the more relevant."
'Universal' theme
Modern readers may find "Metamorphoses" somewhat impenetrable, Scholten conceded. But it still inspires art even after more than 2,000 years.

"The theme is universal," he argued.

"You find it in games, you find it in modern art, you find it everywhere, people are constantly inspired, it's like with fairy tales, and these are the fairy tales -- to a certain extent -- of the ancient period."

The figure of Medusa, represented in the exhibition by works dating from the 16th to the 21st century are shown in the exhibition.

Long presented as an evil symbol, Medusa, raped by the god Poseidon and whose eyes have the power to petrify anyone who meets her gaze, has been reclaimed in recent decades as a feminist symbol.

The exhibition has different forms of Medusa "to show that each generation uses its own, takes the motifs from Ovid, from the Metamorphoses, for its own use," said Scholten.

The exhibition runs until May 25 at the Rijksmuseum before transferring to the Borghese gallery in Rome.