LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Leda: Swan
built 665 days ago
The story of Leda and the Swan is a Greek myth which is told in various versions. Leda, the wife of the king of Sparta, was loved by the god Jupiter. He transformed himself into a swan and came to lie with her. As a consequence of their union she bore the twins Castor and Pollux, who were hatched from eggs. The subject was popular during the Renaissance.
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Zeus seduced her as a swan, and Leda laid two eggs. Out of one egg came Helen and Polydeukes, who were the children of Zeus. Out of othe other egg came Klytaimnestra and Kastor, who were the children of Leda's husband Tyndareos.
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Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology, in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. As the story goes, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband, King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.[1] In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.
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Of the two cartoons Leonardo did for this work one showed Leda kneeling and used mostly curved lines to suggest aa writhing movement which emphasised fertility; the other had her in a standing position. In the final painting Leda was in the second of the two poses and seeming to recoil from the swan, while at the same time showing a shy attraction towards it. Leda's head was modestly lowered giving a virginal look, in contrast her figure was opulent, a mature body with a young head on her shoulders. Like many of Leonardo's subjects her hair was painted in minute detail. She was surrounded by the most fertile landscape that Leonardo -- by this time aged 54 -- had produced since his workshop days. The swan was Jupiter in one of his many disguises and the babies were Castor and Pollux, and Helen and Clytemnestra.
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Leonardo da Vinci began making studies in 1504 for a painting, apparently never executed, of Leda seated on the ground with her children. In 1508 he painted a different composition of the subject, with a nude standing Leda cuddling the Swan, with the two sets of infant twins, and their huge broken egg-shells. The original of this is lost, probably deliberately destroyed, but it is known from many copies.
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