01 Painting, Contemporary Interpretations of Olympian deities, Esther Sarto's Leda & the Swan, with footnotes #32

Esther Sarto

Leda & the Swan, c. 2023

Watercolour, gouache & acrylic medium on watercolour paper. 

43 x 53 cm.

Private collection

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces and has sex with Leda. 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. According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and had sexual intercourse with Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched. In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.

Especially in art, the degree of consent by Leda to the relationship seems to vary considerably; there are numerous depictions, for example by Leonardo da Vinci, that show Leda affectionately embracing the swan, as their children play. More on Leda and the Swan

Esther Sarto is an emerging contemporary artist, who was born in Denmark, in 1992.

Esther Sarto is best known for producing figurative work. Often seen as the contrary of abstraction, figurative art also subsists beyond just a simple representation of reality.

Sarto’s paintings depict a specific world beautified, one where all animals are equal, life feeds into itself and death is just the feeding of another creature of equal import. Sarto uses a soft palette for the harsh nature of her subject matter — the predator and prey are rendered as parallel versions, the meat and egg the same as the mother and child. More on Ester Sarto

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