The Paradoxical Pleasures of Asher B. Durand’s Ariadne

Abstract

Asher B. Durand’s Ariadne (ca. 1831–35), a copy of John Vanderlyn’s Ariadne Asleep On the Island of Naxos (1809–14), is a curiously sensuous work for an artist who was known for his strait-laced morals. Rather than dismissing the painting as a “mere” copy or a matter-of-fact preparatory exercise for Durand’s more famous engraving of the same subject, however, this essay argues that it was a pivotal work for the artist that explored highly charged issues like sin and redemption. It situates these concerns in a broader context of Durand’s devotion to the physiological reform theories of Sylvester Graham, using visual analysis and archival evidence to show how his painting enacted a process of temptation and struggle that was central to Graham’s philosophies. It demonstrates how these moral issues were given special urgency as the global cholera epidemic struck the United States, and it connects the viscous and sensual materiality of the painted Ariadne to a broader discourse of overflow, containment, and self-control. Finally, rather than seeing the engraved and painted versions of Ariadne as identical, this essay explores the differences in their strategies of representation, connecting these impulses to a wider visual culture of cholera in the 1830s.