Diana's Hunt

By 1862 Böcklin was living in Italy and had turned from plain landscape to the old gods. His native Basel bought this hunting scene for its public collection, an early step toward what became the largest holding of his work anywhere. It shows Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, with her bow and her hounds closing on a wounded stag. The landscape still fills most of the canvas and the figures are small inside it, so the dark woods carry as much of the chase as the goddess does.