Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on loan
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Apollo and Python
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: fantastic
Apollo
arrow
attacking
bow
Callimachus, ‘Hymn to Apollo’
classical
classical myths: creatures
classical myths: gods and heroes
crouching
dragon
emotions, concepts and ideas
good and evil
landscape
literature and fiction
man
mountain
objects
Ovid, ‘Metamorphoses’
people
Python
religion and belief
rocky
stump
universal concepts
weapons
<p>When Turner first exhibited this painting, he showed it alongside lines from Hymn to Apollo by the ancient Greek poet, Callimachus. The passage describes the sun god Apollo killing a large dragon, known as Python. Turner interprets Apollo’s killing of Python as a triumph of good over evil. He shows this in his painting, as light overcoming darkness. However, a smaller snake is shown emerging from the dragon’s wound. This might suggest an ongoing battle between these forces. Reminding the viewer that this win is not final.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2019</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 March 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
5 March 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-03-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-03-05
Painting Landscape and History [TB CL2002]
Collection based display
25 April 2001 – 29 July 2001
2001-07-29
25 April 2001 – 30 July 2001
2001-07-30
2001-04-25
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-04-25
House and Studio
Collection based display
8 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
Turner and Mythology
Collection based display
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
Collection based display
12 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
12 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Among the Immortals
Collection based display
14 April 2012 – 9 February 2020
2020-02-09
14 April 2012 – 9 February 2020
2020-02-09
2012-04-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-14
Clore Introduction: Ambition and Legacy
Collection based display
28 April 2012 – 3 July 2016
2016-07-03
28 April 2012
2012-04-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-28
The Body
Collection based display
16 October 2021 – 14 July 2023
2023-07-14
16 October 2021 – 6 March 2022
2022-03-06
2021-10-16
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark)
18 May 2022 – 11 September 2022
2022-09-11
2022-05-18
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www.mnac.es
8 October 2022 – 5 February 2023
2023-02-05
2022-10-08
National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
http://www.nationalgallery.ie
3 March 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-03-03
Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland)
2021-10-16
Turner Watercolours: Sun is God
Tate partnerships & programmes
12 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
2024-01-28
12 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
2024-01-28
2023-10-12
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
2023-10-12
Turner & Mythology
Loan-out
6 July 2024 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
6 July 2024 – 1 September 2024
2024-09-01
2024-07-06
Grimaldi Forum (Monaco, Monaco)
30 September 2024 – 7 May 2025
2025-05-07
2024-09-30
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
21 June 2025 – 5 October 2025
2025-10-05
2025-06-21
Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia)
1 June 2026 – 1 October 2026
2026-10-01
2026-06-01
External
15 November 2026 – 15 March 2027
2027-03-15
2026-11-15
External
1 May 2027 – 1 September 2027
2027-09-01
2027-05-01
External
15 October 2027 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
2027-10-15
External
2024-07-06
Turner's Sublime Legacy
Tate partnerships & programmes
Apollo and Python
support: 1454 × 2375 mm
frame: 1935 × 2845 × 192 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>When Turner first exhibited this painting, he showed it alongside lines from Hymn to Apollo by the ancient Greek poet, Callimachus. The passage describes the sun god Apollo killing a large dragon, known as Python. <br/>Turner interprets Apollo’s killing of Python as a triumph of good over evil. He shows this in his painting, as light overcoming darkness. However, a smaller snake is shown emerging from the dragon’s wound. This might suggest an ongoing battle between these forces. Reminding the viewer that this win is not final.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2019-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>115. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-apollo-and-python-n00488" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00488</span></a>]<b> Apollo and Python Exh. 1811</b>
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (488)
<br/>Canvas, 57 1/4×93 1/2 (145·5 × 237·5)
<br/><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (58, ‘Apollo and Python’ 7'10 1/2" × 4'10"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1811 (81); Tate Gallery 1931 (46).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 and 1860 (1903–12, xiii, p. 122; vii, pp. 409–22); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 294; 1877, p. 430; Hamerton 1879, p. 122; Monkhouse 1879, pp. 67–74; Bell 1901, pp. 61, 89 no. 121; Armstrong 1902, p. 218; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 180, 473 no. 162; Gage 1969, pp. 55, 139–40, 193, pl. 44; Wilton 1980, pp. 72, 133; Marks 1981, p. 346; Paulson 1982, pp. 81, 92–3.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Exhibited in 1811 with the following lines:
<br/></p>
<p>‘Envenom'd by thy darts, the monster coil'd
<br/>Portentous horrible and vast his snake-like form:
<br/>Rent the huge portal of the rocky den,
<br/>And in the throes of death he tore,
<br/>His many wounds in one, while earth
<br/>Absorbing, blacken'd with his gore’.</p>
<p align="right">Hymn of Callimachus.
<br/></p>
<p>The Python was a huge dragon living at Crissa near Delphi, which Apollo chose as a site for his oracle. The name ‘Python’ is said to have been derived from the Greek word ‘rot’ used by Apollo as he killed it. Turner seems to have used two eighteenth-century English translations of the Callimacchus <i>Hymn to Apollo</i>, those by Christopher Pitt in R. Anderson's <i>Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain</i> viii 1794, and by William Dodds, <i>The Hymns of Callimacchus</i> 1755; Turner's own drafts, partly based on these, occur in the ‘Hastings’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i>
1809–11 (CXI-17, 26 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a>, 39 verso-40, 52 verso-53, 70 verso, 78, 82 verso and 83 verso). Cook and Wedderburn, in the Library Edition of Ruskin's Works vii, p. 409 n. 1., suggest that the verses in the R.A. catalogue were also based on the description of dragons in Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i> Book 1, the Python and the dragon killed by Cadmus. They also suggest that Turner originally intended to show the latter, with what appears to be Cadmus' javelin, later overpainted, being shown sticking into the dragon. In some of his draft verses, though not in those finally printed, Turner stresses the contrast between the dark setting of the Python's lair and Apollo's ‘golden arms’, a contrast recognised in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> itself by John Ruskin in <i>Modern Painters</i> v (see below).
<br/>
<br/>Turner seems to have had the picture in mind for some years; some of the sketches are closely juxtaposed with ones for <i>The Garden of the Hesperides</i> (No. 57 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-goddess-of-discord-choosing-the-apple-of-contention-in-the-garden-of-the-n00477" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00477</span></a>]) and, perhaps, <i>Jason</i> (No. 19 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-jason-n00471" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00471</span></a>). A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> sketch appears in the ‘Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford’ sketchbook, used by Turner as early as 1802, but is perhaps itself rather later (LXXVII-43 verso; repr. Wilkinson 1974, p. 52). Another, inscribed ‘Death of Python’, very different from the final picture and therefore presumably Turner's first idea, is in the ‘Calais Pier’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i> 1800–05 (LXXXI-68 and 69). A third, also differing from the painting, is in the ‘Hesperides (1)’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i> 1805–7 (XCIII-28 verso). There are two studies for the figure of the Apollo in the 'Studies for Pictures: Isleworth sketchbook of <i>c.</i>
1804–5 (XC-3). The picture could have been exhibited in Turner's own gallery before appearing at the R.A. in 1811, no catalogues having survived for the years 1804 to 1808 (though the exhibits for 1808 are almost certainly given in full in John Landseer's (?) account in the <i>Review of Publications of Art</i>). Certainly the picture, though very dirty, looks as if it could have been painted considerably earlier than 1811. However, as Marks points out, Turner's first lectures as Professor of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/perspective" title="Glossary definition for 'Perspective'"><span>Perspective</span></a>, delivered during the winter of 1810–11, show a return to <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> principles. Moreover, when the picture was being restored in 1984, it was clear that its technique was very different from that of the Tate Gallery's works from the middle of the first decade of the century.
<br/>
<br/>Press reports of the 1811 R.A. exhibitions concentrated on <i>Mercury and Herse</i> (No. 114), though the <i>Monthly Magazine</i> for July did say that <i>Apollo and Python</i> was ‘also ... such a brilliant example of practical composition, in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>, as is not excelled in the English School’, echoing its praise for No. 114.
<br/>
<br/>The picture was, however, singled out by Ruskin in 1857 as ‘one of the very noblest of all Turner's work’, and in <i>Modern Painting</i> v he devoted several pages to the picture, which he regarded as a sequel to <i>The Garden of the Hesperides</i>. He saw it as ‘the first experience of a great change which was passing in Turner's mind’ in which he became ‘the painter of the loveliness and light of the creation’, displaying ‘light seen pre-eminently in colour’.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults animals: fantastic Apollo arrow attacking bow Callimachus, ‘Hymn to Apollo’ classical classical myths: creatures classical myths: gods and heroes crouching dragon emotions, concepts and ideas good and evil landscape literature and fiction man mountain objects Ovid, ‘Metamorphoses’ people Python religion and belief rocky stump universal concepts weapons