Lake Avernus: Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl
Joseph Mallord William Turner
between 1814 and 1815
The ancient Romans believed Lake Avernus—the water-filled mouth of an extinct volcano—was the entrance to the underworld. Turner depicts the Cumaean Sibyl, an ancient Roman priestess, as she prepares to lead the mythical hero Aeneas through the lake’s depths to meet his dead father. The scene draws heavily on the work of the seventeenth-century French landscape painter Claude Lorrain, whose compositions evoke a timeless golden-age world. Yet Turner went beyond Claude’s style. The sweeping lines of trees, the warm coloring, and the landscape’s seeming vastness all show Turner’s determination to rival his admired predecessor.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0