The Story
Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun is a 1658 painting by French artist Nicolas Poussin. Done in oil on canvas, the painting depicts a scene in which the mythological figure Orion — having been blinded — searches for the rising sun. The painting's scene was inspired by the 2nd century CE Syrian writer Lucian's retellings and spoofs on Greek mythology, including the Orion legend. Poussin painted Blind Orion on behalf of Michel Passart, a well-known patron of landscape painting.
Poussin's work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which considers the work one of Poussin's greatest landscape paintings.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 46 7/8 x 72 in. (119.1 x 182.9 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Nicolas Poussin builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
