Judgement of Paris by Niklaus Manuel

Niklaus Manuel's Judgement of Paris, painted in 1517 and now at the Kunstmuseum Basel, is one of the most significant works by this Swiss painter, poet, and political reformer. The mythological subject — Paris choosing among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and awarding the golden apple to the most beautiful — was a pretext for depicting the female nude in a northern European context. Manuel was among the first Swiss artists to engage seriously with classical mythology, and his treatment of the subject blends Italian Renaissance awareness of the nude body with the expressive linearity of German graphic tradition. Manuel later became an ardent partisan of the Reformation, making this mythological painting a product of the last years before his full conversion to Protestantism.

Manuel's graphic background as a draftsman gives the figures a crisp, linear definition that contrasts with the looser, more atmospheric handling of the landscape. The three goddesses are rendered as idealized nudes in a northern German idiom, with careful attention to pose differentiation.