Horace Vernet (1789–1863) came from a long line of distinguished painters. His grandfather Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) was a major landscape artist who developed the genre after the pioneering work of Poussin and Claude Lorraine. His father Carle Vernet (1758-1836) won the Prix de Rome (for history painting) and went on to record Napoleon’s military campaigns. He also has the possibly unique distinction of being an artist who was born in the Louvre, as his parents were taking shelter there at the time of the French Revolution.

His career spanned a turbulent period in French history. He initially followed in his father’s footsteps in painting military scenes, but his emphasis and style were contemporary, showing more the human side of soldiers and soldiering. This brought him major commissions from the restored monarchy. He was the Director of the French Academy in Rome between 1829 and 1834, being succeeded in that post by none other than Ingres.

After the fall of the monarchy with the 1848 revolution, he enjoyed the patronage of Napoleon III during the Second Empire. However this adeptness under radical political change was not accomplished by fluid allegiance, and Vernet continued to paint faithful records of the harsh conditions and perils of conflict.

The Campaign in France (1814)

Once Napoleon’s armies had been defeated at Leipzig in 1813, those of the other countries in Europe pursued them into north-east France, where there was a series of smaller battles and skirmishes fought in the French countryside, amid the terrified farmers and their families. Here Vernet shows soldiers fighting around a burning farmhouse, as its occupants try to escape with little more than their lives. Their cattle are panicking, and it appears that the farmer himself has been shot, perhaps when trying to defend his family. A small boy buries his head into his mother’s apron.

This must have been one of the earliest portrayals of the human impact of war on civilians, and uses all the tools of narrative painting, even a forboding sky, to best effect.

The Last Grenadier of Waterloo (c 1818)

Napoleon returned from exile to power in March 1815, meeting immediate opposition from a coalition of states, and culminating in the Battle of Waterloo, just nine miles to the south of modern Brussels. Over half the 73,000 French soldiers who took part were killed, captured, or injured, and this grenadier from Napoleon’s Imperial Guard has just been burying some of those dead. He is shown, lost in thought, with minor wounds to his right leg and foot.

Around him, partially buried in the grave, are various relics of battle, including a rifle bolt, bayonet, and most significantly the eagle of the French Empire and its Imperial Guard. Unburied British dead are abandoned in the right background, and on the left the fiery dusk sky silhouettes a lone cross.

The Dog of the Regiment Wounded (1819)

Another of Vernet’s touching insights into the wars of the First Empire was this painting of a scene beside the grim fighting of, probably, Waterloo. The Regimental dog has sustained a superficial head wound, and two soldiers here take a few moments out of battle to clean the wound using liquid (possibly alcohol) from a hip flask.

The Clichy Barrier (1820)

In the final stages of the wars ending the First Empire, Paris itself came under attack at the end of March 1814. Part of its defence was a barrier set up at Clichy, commanded by Marshal Moncey (on horseback, centre). Here he is giving his orders to a goldsmith who was colonel of the National Guard, Claude Odiot, who is holding the Marshal’s horse, on 30 March 1814.

Once again Vernet shows civilians mixed up in the military engagement, in a young woman in the foreground who is cradling her young baby, beside a white goat. Another fascinating and enigmatic figure is shown at the far left, wearing an armour helmet, disguised by a pale cloak, sat astride a horse.

The Artist’s Studio (c 1820)

Long before Courbet’s possibly allegorical painting of his studio, Vernet’s was just as crowded, rich in stories, and puzzling. In the centre, two young men fight one another with swords by a white horse, which is tethered to the wall. Immediately in front of the white horse is a pair of boxers, and another young man sits on the back of a chair to watch the fencing, holding a rifle against the left side of his body.

In the left background a couple of pupils are actually engaged in painting at easels, but the most prominent easel in the room is completely ignored by those present. Another painter is at work at the far left, apparently talking with three young men who are watching, and accompanied by a drummer. Another small group of young men is engaged in discussion against the wall to the left.

There are also pets and props: an angry white dog in the centre foreground, a small pet monkey in the left background, saddles hung on the wall in the centre, and a large oil painting is on the back wall.

Byron’s Mazeppa

In 1819, the popular British poet, Lord Byron, published a narrative poem titled Mazeppa, based on popular legend about the early years of Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), who later became Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks. When a young man, Mazeppa served as a page at the Court of King John II Casimir Vasa. He had an affair with a Countess Theresa, who was married to an older Count. The Count punished Mazeppa by attaching him naked to the back of a wild horse, and setting the horse loose.

Byron’s poem details the suffering and endurance of Mazeppa during his long journey on the back of the horse, and formed the basis for one of Vernet’s most vivid paintings.

In this study of Mazeppa (1826), sketchy and highly gestural brushstrokes animate the whole canvas, as the horse gallops across barren land, pursued by wolves.

Vernet’s finished Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826) gains detail, and its smooth paint surface, at the expense of the study’s spontaneity and speed. But this enables him to show the wolves in their fearsome detail. This inspired slightly later versions by John Frederick Herring, now in Tate Britain.

Judith and Holofernes (study) (1828/1832)

Vernet also made a study for a rather unusual treatment of Judith and Holofernes. Instead of showing the action immediately prior to, during, or following Holoferne’s beheading, he pictures Judith at her moment of peripeteia, the sword in her right hand, gazing at Holofernes and wondering whether she should kill him. This might have been an interesting parallel to Poussin’s treatment of Armida, for instance, when she changed her mind in the other direction.

His model for Judith was Olympe Pélissier (1799-1878), a society hostess who had an affair with Honoré de Balzac in 1830, and later became the second wife of Gioachino Rossini, the Italian composer.

In the end, Vernet seems to have abandoned this more psychological approach for an alternative composition, which he then exhibited at the Salon in 1831.

Italian Brigands Surprised by Papal Troops (1830)

When Director of the French Academy in Rome, Vernet may have had experience of the brigands or banditi – so loved by Salvator Rosa – who operated in rural Italy, particularly into the foothills of the Alps.

Here he shows the scene resulting from an attack by banditi on the coach seen further back on the left, on the bend passing through a cleft in the rock, with the dark blue water of the Mediterranean behind. The banditi are not just making off with the valuables from the coach, but have adbucted its passengers as well, a woman in pale blue being far up the hillside at the right. In pitched battle with them is a horseborne troop of soldiers, armed with rifles, pistols, and a fearsome sabre.

The Taking of Constantine (1838)

Vernet is best-known for his detailed and meticulously-painted records of battles. For some of these he used extreme panoramic formats, but common to them all is his ability to capture the conditions, perils, and chaos of combat.

As part of the French campaign in Algeria, the Constantine Expedition of 1837 was of limited military significance, but offered domestic political advantage. Vernet’s painting shows the disorderly struggle of the troops as they fought their way to the top, in the final assault on 13 October. General Valée, in command, was made a Marshal of France on 11 November, and Governor General of Algeria on 1 December.

The Angel of Death (1851)

The nineteenth century was a period when death – particularly of the relatively young, from diseases such as tuberculosis, ‘King Death’ – was all too familiar. My final selection is Vernet’s moving depiction of what everyone dreaded.

A young man is praying over the side of a bed, kneeling, his hands clasped together. Opposite him, an illuminated Bible is open, above that an icon hangs on the wall, there is a sprig of flowers, and a flame burns in prayer. But the occupant of the bed, a beautiful young woman, is being lifted out of it. Her right hand is raised, its index finger pointing upwards to heaven.

Behind her, the Angel of Death, the outer surface of its wings black, and clad in long black robes, its face concealed beneath a hood, is lifting her out, to raise her body up towards the beam of light which shines down from the heavens.

This epitomises the nineteenth century European attitude to death, and its common narrative.

Conclusions

Vernet tells some very human stories using traditional techniques. However, in the absence of recent published information about him and his work, it is very difficult to go any deeper, and some of his paintings remain hard to read. Given their quite broad spread in public collections around the world, it is hard to see why his work remains so neglected.

If you know of any useful references, please tell us: a decent biography would be a good start.

I am delighted to welcome Kirsty Whiten, a young, accomplished and highly innovative artist, who explains her forthcoming book Wronger Rites – The Quing of the Now People, which is currently a Kickstarter project. She has generously provided images of three of the paintings from that book.

These three paintings come from a series of rituals which I fabricated and played with, collaborating with my models during photo sessions to create costumes, scenarios, poses and narratives. I think of each ritual we constructed as a sort of balm for identity crises and particular modern miseries.

Flatfoot fronting comes out of an idea of women accepting and flaunting something animal, assertive and grounding about their femaleness. No shoes, no heels to make their butts pert. Animal masks to lend the character of the hyena or the eagle. I am really interested in a little gargoyle called the Sheela Na Gig, which is found above doors in churches all round Europe, but mostly in Ireland. It is holding open an exaggerated vagina and grinning, and I used that challenge for one of the dancers in the painting.

The rite of Peacockery is for the flamboyant gentleman. They do wear the heels, and colourful phalluses, and it’s their turn to be in the beam of a sexually hungry gaze. The image comes from the idea that this would be deeply liberating for men, and equalising for a society. I found that as I went on and painted more and more figures engaged in these dances, that there was a special satisfaction in finding the right mask for the energy and position of the body.

The Quing of the Now People is the high priestess who oversees all of the rituals. A genderqueer character with a full beard and beautiful, gracious ankles, she/he is meant to be accepting of all sorts of people and their bodies. The foliage is Sorbus, or Rowan, which has been used to ward off evil spirits and planted often outside newly built homes as protection.

These paintings meld so-called primitive culture with Western, the ache of the atheist for a bit of magic and meaning, and marking life stages. The characters are clearly contemporary but behavioural customs have broken down for them; are they castaway, or living in some post-boundary future? They inhabit a place and time removed. Secular society denies of us a shared belief in a universal narrative, and many of us miss out on performing rituals that mark our life stages or handling objects that contain power and wisdom.

Wronger Rites began as a drive to imagine sacred actions for the Now Peoples, to see what might be missed.

Phearce Perturbation
– or –
the body that seeks to join
– or –
Peacockery

The men are known to need a dose of gaze.
Those who seek to inhabit this beam, or to quest for a joining body,
display in the rite of Peacockery.
The process of preparation and preening can last for many days
and causes much ululation and tearing of head hair,
as the rite is highly competitive.

The rite is a process of walking the hot coals of vanity.

A few are chosen from the display as mates
but often simply met, sexually, on that night.
oftentimes parts of the display turn in on themselves
and satisfy each other’s intense desire to be ‘seen’ and adored.

Some require no joining but to the balm of crowd-eye.

Flatfoot Fronting
– or –
The Body that Chooses

A private nightaway from the men,
a fierce celebration,
a safe discharging of negative emotion
for those whose feet have trodden
bare and flat
from girlhood.

Not a great deal is known about the process, though it seems to be
a sort of taking stock in life. The flatfoots say
they take
the hyena’s ‘bite’ or ‘headgear’
(translation is unclear)
it isn’t safe exactly.

The dance is long, and many softfoots think it ugly
and dirty
(the floor is beaten earth)
though reports are extremely scarce
because the flatfoots are fierce about their privacy in this regard.

The Quing – Sorbus Warden Ritual
-or-
The Body that Changes

Here The Quing oversees changing bodies.

All bodies are changing bodies.

His and her robes are said to represent
every vulva, every anus,
every puckered wound or scar of the Now Peoples.

His and her fruiting ‘Sorbus’ or Rowan fruits
are used to ward off malign attitude, and dysmorphia.
Anointing with warm oil, the Now Peoples work to forgive
the betrayals of the meatsack, or sacred lump,
and commit to ‘driving’ (steering or riding?) the body onwards
with deep care and respect.

It is curiously clear that there is no sense at all of
‘male’ or ‘female’
at this time
and Now Peoples try to both
accept
and step into
their most direct self
by way of the gut and of kindness.

Kirsty is publishing a book containing images of the whole of this series of paintings. It is currently open as a project on Kickstarter and has already far exceeded its target. If you want to obtain a copy of her book, then that is currently the only way to do so.

She also has an extensive gallery and further information about her art on her website.

References

Wikipedia on Sheela Na Gig.
The Sheela Na Gig Project.

Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) is known today largely for a single series of paintings, his Island of the Dead. Trained at the Düsseldorf Academy, he was the Swiss member of a small group of largely German symbolists whose existence has been suppressed in favour of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Although Swiss and trained in Germany, he spent long periods in Italy, from 1850 onwards, and painted many scenes from classical mythology. The earlier of these had relatively little narrative content, but from the 1870s on he increasingly portrayed stories rather than producing portraits of mythical figures.

Böcklin’s paintings are now relatively obscure, and there is scant modern literature. This has undoubtedly been influenced by the American critic Clement Greenberg, who in 1947 damned Böcklin’s work as being “one of the most consummate expressions of all that was now disliked about the latter half of the nineteenth century.” Coming from a self-appointed judge of artistic taste who promoted abstract expressionism and colour field painting to come close to destroying painting as an art form, this can only be taken as high praise.

Fight of the Centaurs (1873)

In Greek and Roman mythology, the centaurs were creatures with the upper body of a human, down to the waist, fused onto the body (with all four legs) of a horse. Although some tales about centaurs suggest otherwise, in general they represented the lower appetites and behaviours of humans, and were more like wild horses than people. They were known for their fights with Lapiths, an Aeolian tribe, against whom they wielded rocks and limbs of trees. Centaurs persisted in legends and stories well into the Middle Ages.

Böcklin’s depiction shows them fighting one another, in hand-to-hand combat, and wielding rocks. Their body language is clear and violent.

Roger and Angelica

Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso is an epic poem containing, among others, the tale of the knight Roger (Ruggiero), who is out riding near the coast of Brittany on his hippogriff (half horse, half eagle). He discovers the beautiful Angelica chained to a rock on the Isle of Tears, where she was left by abductors as a sacrifice to a sea monster. As Roger approaches to free her, the monster appears from the sea. Roger drives his lance in between its eyes to kill it, then rides off with the rescued Angelica.

Roger freeing Angelica (1873)

In his first painting of the scene, Böcklin provides us with a composite image of the story. Angelica is bound to a tree, around which the fearsome sea monster is already coiled. Roger approaches from behind, riding a conventional horse, his lance ready to kill the unsuspecting monster. Nowhere does Böcklin show the sea, or show this as being particularly coastal.

This is very different from Ingres’ more literal portrayal in his Roger Rescuing Angelica (1819).

Böcklin shows the story at a momentary pause in the action, just before Angelica can plead with the knight to save her life, before the monster sees Roger approaching, and before Roger can try to kill the monster. Angelica’s face seems almost emotionless, Roger’s is concealed, and the monster hardly looks menacing. There is almost no body language either. Böcklin has come close to painting a pre-action group portrait, rather than the vigorous account of the centaurs.

Roger freeing Angelica (1879-80)

Six years later, Böcklin visited the story again, although unfortunately this painting appears to have gone missing at present. He has jumped forward to the moment after the climax of the action, and the monster’s blood is still pouring from its severed neck. Roger, his face concealed, is draping a robe over Angelica’s naked body. She stands, still transfixed by the fear which has now been resolved, her face showing the imminent relief of stress by tears. Her hands are held up in helplessness and surrender to events, and her knees slightly flexed in fear.

Sirens (1875)

A popular story from the Homeric Odyssey, the Sirens were one of the many hazards which Odysseus/Ulysses had to overcome. They were two to five creatures who inhabited a section of the Mediterranean coast, and lured men to their death with their singing. Various descriptions of them were given, usually involving some combination of beautiful women and parts of the body of birds. I have previously shown JW Waterhouse’s fine painting of Odysseus and his crew sailing past the Sirens.

Most other depictions of the Sirens show them in the context of Odysseus’ passage, and place considerable emphasis on his vessel and men. Böcklin takes the much more unusual approach of almost dereferencing Odysseus – although there is an approaching vessel which could be his – and making the Sirens fill his canvas.

The Sirens shown are very human down to the waist, below which they resemble birds. One sits facing us, clearly in full voice, and very alluring in looks. The other, her back towards us, appears to be playing a flute-like instrument, and looks rather obese, to the point of almost being comical, her right breast laid upon a flat-topped rock. At their feet are three human skulls and others bones to indicate their graver intentions.

The Deposition (1876)

Scenes showing the taking down of Christ’s body from the cross after his crucifixion, as described in the Gospel of John Chapter 19:38-42, were popular in painting from the tenth century onwards. The key figures named in the biblical account are Joseph of Arimathea, who had arranged for his burial, and Nicodemus, who brought spices to help preserve the body in accordance with Jewish tradition.

Other figures who may appear include Saint John the Evangelist, who is sometimes shown supporting the Virgin Mary, and the three Marys: the Virgin Mary (Christ’s mother), Mary Magdalene, and Mary Salome.

Böcklin largely follows convention in the figures in his painting of the Deposition. At the right background are the other two victims, still hanging on their crosses.

Christ’s body is being cradled by an elderly Joseph of Arimathea, in his rich clothing, while the Virgin Mary looks on, her head held in her hands, in grief. Nicodemus is seen at Christ’s feet, wrapping his body in linen strips in preparation for burial. At the left, Mary Magdalene is distraught, and being comforted by Saint John the Evangelist.

Where Böcklin departs from convention is in his composition. The great majority of depictions are centred on the lowering of Christ’s body from the cross, and use a portrait format. Böcklin opts for a linear array in landscape format, and the importance of translation of the body and burial preparations, rather than descent to earth. This is more orderly, and allows him to arrange the faces of those involved in an arc. Those faces bear some of the most studied expressions in any of Böcklin’s paintings.

The Island of the Dead

Between 1880 and 1886, Böcklin painted a total of five different versions of his most famous work, The Island (or Isle) of the Dead. Each shows a similar island, probably based in part on the English Cemetery in Florence, where his own baby daughter had been buried. Each shows the deceased being rowed across to the island, which calls on the classical myth of Charon, who rows the dead over the rivers Styx and Acheron to the underworld.

Island of the Dead (version 1) (1880)

The first version shows the small boat just outside the harbour of a small rocky island which appears to be lined with mausoleums. The light is remarkable, seemingly a bright twighlight, against dark water and sky. However the direction of travel of the boat is ambiguous, as it may actually be moving away from the island and towards the viewer.

Island of the Dead (version 3) (1883)

The first two versions met with criticism. Böcklin changed the lighting and closed in on his motif, making it much clearer that the boat was entering the island’s tiny harbour. Although less dramatically lit, this adds clarity to the most important part of the painting.

Odysseus and Calypso (1883)

Calypso was, in Greek mythology, a nymph, the daughter of Atlas the Titan, who lived on the island of Ogygia. She attained fame in Homer’s Odyssey, in detaining Odysseus for seven years as her ‘immortal husband’. She enchants him with her singing as she weaves with a golden shuttle on her loom. However, Odysseus realises that he wants to be re-united with his wife Penelope, and the gods finally release him.

Calypso is shown, in front of a cave on the beach, holding her lyre rather than weaving. Odysseus is at the far left, staring into the distance (although he faces away, so the actual direction of his gaze is not seen). He would appear to be homesick for Penelope, wishing that he was released from Calypso’s control. This is a stark image of a barren landscape and empty relationship.

Attack by Pirates (1886)

A recurrent theme among Böcklin’s paintings is of an Italianate villa by the sea, which started to appear in about 1871. Later in his career the villa suffers an attack by pirates.

From its origins low at the water’s edge, the villa is now seen high on the precipitous cliffs of a rocky island, joined to the mainland by a long viaduct. At dusk (or possibly dawn), the pirates attack from the sea, setting light to the villa, which casts an eerie red light against the black clouds.

I do not know whether Böcklin’s painting refers to any written narrative, or whether it is symbolic of his life or career at this stage, perhaps.

Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)

In another episode in the Odyssey, Odysseus came across the Cyclops, in particular Polyphemus, a savage one-eyed man-eating giant who spent his days tending his flock of sheep. After Polyphemus has devoured several of Odysseus’ crew, Odysseus gets Polyphemus drunk. Polyphemus asks Odysseus his name, and the latter replies Οὖτις (Outis, Greek for nobody). Once the giant has fallen into a stupor, Odysseus drives a hardened stake into the Cyclops’ one eye, blinding him. The following morning, Odysseus and his men tie themselves to the undersides of the sheep in Polyphemus’ flock so that he cannot feel them escaping.

Recognising that he has lost his captives, Polyphemus calls out for help from the other Cyclops, telling them that ‘Nobody’ has hurt him. The other Cyclops therefore do not come to his aid. As Odysseus and his crew sail off into the dawn, they deride the blind Polyphemus. The giant prays to his father, Poseidon (Neptune), for revenge, and throws huge rocks towards the fleeing ship.

This moment in the Odyssey was also painted by JMW Turner in his Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829).

Böcklin shows Odysseus’ crew rowing frantically out to sea, through large waves, as Polyphemus prepares to hurl a huge rock at them from the shore. His detailed realism and tight composition make this one of Böcklin’s most dramatic and active paintings. This is accomplished without facial expressions, and with very simple use of body language.

Nessus and Deianira (1898)

Deianira (which has various spellings, and means destroyer of men) was the mythical wife of Heracles. She needed to be ferried across the river Euenos, a task for which the wild centaur Nessus offered himself. However Nessus attempted to kidnap or rape Deianira while ferrying her, and she fought back. Heracles came to her aid, and shot a poisoned arrow at Nessus. As Nessus lay dying, he told Deianira to take some of his blood, as when it was mixed with olive oil it would ensure that Heracles would never be unfaithful.

Deianira kept some of this potion to hand, and Heracles fathered illegitimate children across much of Greece. When she was afraid that Heracles would leave her, she applied some of the potion to Heracles’ lion-skin shirt. When Heracles next put it on, it burned him so badly that he threw himself onto a funeral pyre; Deianira committed suicide in despair.

In one of Böcklin’s final narrative paintings, he kept quite well to the classical story. Nessus and Deianira are fighting, Nessus clearly having the upper hand. But at the right, Heracles has stuck a poisoned spear into Nessus, and his toxic blood is already pouring out of him. Böcklin supports this with clear facial expressions and body language which meet expections.

Conclusions

Böcklin’s mythological paintings became increasingly narrative during his career. During the 1870s, most were fairly static in form, but in the 1880s they became more active, and timed closer to the climax of the action. As a result several of his narrative paintings were innovative and highly effective.

I am not sure which might have symbolic meaning or even allegorical content, and the shortage of information about his works leaves uncertainty over the reading of his paintings.

Reference

Wikipedia.

The story of Belshazzar, his feast, and ultimate downfall is tucked away in the relative obscurity of the Book of Daniel, in the Old Testament, and to the best of my knowledge has only inspired four significant artists to portray it in paint.

It presents an unusual problem for narrative painting, in that the story itself is about words – the same words that gave rise to the expression the writing is on the wall. It is therefore quite a literary narrative, and at first sight might not be a wise choice for a painting at all.

Narrative

The history books of the Old Testament are full of leaders who stray from God’s way, and come to an unpleasant end as a result. King Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and like his father was the King of Babylon. Although Belshazzar was not wholly bad – he rewarded the prophet Daniel, for instance – he did not fear and respect God.

Belshazzar threw a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and demanded that the holy vessels be brought from the Temple in Jerusalem for use at his feast – a very irreverent act. As the thousand lords raised their goblets to celebrate Belshazzar’s greatness, a hand appeared and wrote some Hebrew letters on the wall.

Belshazzar called on his magicians and soothsayers to interpret the letters, but they could not. It was Belshazzar’s wife who suggested that Daniel be summoned. When he arrived, Belshazzar offered to make him third in rank in the kingdom if he could translate the Hebrew letters; although he refused the honour, Daniel translated.

In doing so, he reminded Belshazzar of how God threw his father down until he learned subservience to God. Daniel pointed out that Belshazzar had been drinking from the Temple vessels but had not given honour to God. Accordingly God wrote the words mene, mene, tekel, parsin – translated and explicated as God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end, you have been weighed and found wanting, and your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

That night, Belshazzar was killed, and his kingdom passed to King Darius the Mede.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)

By far the best-known painting of Belshazzar’s Feast is of course Rembrandt’s, painted around 1635-1638. This is one of Rembrandt’s most beautiful paintings, in which he has captured the exquisite detail of the jewels and decorations on Belshazzar, and its rich, golden light shines across the room.

Belshazzar is stood, taken aback to the point where his eyes appear to be popping out, as he watches the disembodied hand trace out the foreign letters on the wall behind him. His right hand is steadying him against a salver on the table, having knocked one of the Temple vessels over, his left hand is held up in amazement, as if to push the vision away from him.

A couple of his guests sat to his right show astonishment, although the direction of their gaze is not actually at the writing on the wall.

On Belshazzar’s left, a woman in a bright red robe is also transfixed by the writing on the wall, sufficient that she has tipped the contents of the goblet in her right hand onto the floor.

There is, unfortunately, a problem with the Hebrew writing on the wall. Rembrandt is believed to have been advised by a friend who was a learned Rabbi, but one of the characters is incorrect, and they are arranged inappropriately in columns, rather than horizontally from right to left.

In this early history painting of his, Rembrandt adheres rigorously to Alberti’s rules. The facial expressions are remarkably worked, and the body language even has wry touches of humour, with goblets being knocked over and tipped. His tight composition gives no impression of the scale and grandeur of the whole feast, but captures the moment of high drama.

A little later, Pietro Dandini (1646-1712) painted his more modest version, which is now in the Pushkin Museum, and shown here.

John Martin (1789–1854)

The English painter John Martin is best known for his apocalyptic visions expressed onto vast canvases. But following a challenge from his American artist friend Washington Allston (see below) before he left the UK in 1818, Martin painted three historical scenes from Babylon: The Fall of Babylon (1819), Belshazzar’s Feast (1820-1), and The Fall of Nineveh (1828).

The version shown here is half-sized; the original full-size painting was offered to the National Gallery but declined because of its great size.

Martin chooses a different moment in the story, and the other end of the scale as far as its pictorial scope. The thousand lords are shown feasting in vast open-roofed halls. Above them are the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, with the Tower of Babel in the distance, and a ziggurat slightly closer.

The writing on the wall burns bright at the far left, its characters carefully made illegible in this version.

The Top Tables are in the foreground, Daniel standing prominent in a black cloak explaining the meaning of the words. Belshazzar and his royal entourage are recoiling in shock around his throne at the far right.

In going for the grandeur of the whole scene, Martin makes it more of a spectacle, but lacks the human element of the narrative. There are no facial expressions to be seen, and the body language is all but lost in the vast scale of the image and his canvas.

Washington Allston (1779-1843)

Martin’s American friend Allston appears to have started work on his own version around 1817, whilst still in the UK, and did not complete it until about 1843. Although he also used a huge canvas, of over 3.5 by nearly 5 metres size, his approach attempts to capture the same human intimacy as Rembrandt.

He shows Daniel, in the centre and dressed in black, explaining the meaning of the writing on the wall (off the right edge of the painting) to Belshazzar and his queen, at the left. The cluster of men seen at the right are presumably the magicians and soothsayers who failed to interpret the writing before Daniel was summoned.

Although Allston does not manage the brilliance of Rembrandt, and loses Martin’s spectacle, he is able to show more of the facial expressions and body language of the people most involved.

Most recently, Susan Hiller (born 1940) made a multimedia installation Belshazzar’s Feast, the Writing on Your Wall (1983-4), which is shown at the Tate Gallery. Its media are described as “sofa, armchairs, tables, pillows, lamps, artificial plants, rug, 12 works on paper, wallpaper and video”.

Conclusions

The original account, with its now lost wordplay in Hebrew, still makes a good story, and was here depicted by three quite different artists with different approaches. Of the three, I still think that Rembrandt’s genius shines through, in a painting which is not only one of his most beautiful, but which expresses a very human and intimate account of the events.

In going for the huge, awesome and spectacular, Martin loses the emotional appeal of the story. So too Allston’s version falls short. In the hands of masters like Rembrandt, telling stories in paintings can look deceptively easy: in truth it is not.

John Martin (1789–1854) was a contemporary and friend of JMW Turner, William Etty, Thomas Cole, and Washington Allston, and was as popular and successful as the best of them.

Working almost exclusively in the Burkean sublime, Martin made a name for himself with huge dark apocalyptic scenes, although he also painted some pleasant landscapes. I have already discussed his Belshazzar’s Feast (1820-1), but will repeat the image of it for the sake of completeness.

Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812)

Today, the story of Sadak (perhaps derived from Zadok) has been almost forgotten, but from its publication in James Ridley’s Tales of the Genii in 1764, it enjoyed sustained popularity. Pretending to be from a Persian original, it was orientalist fiction. Sultan Amurath sends the hero Sadak on a mission to locate the waters of Oblivion, which are claimed to destroy memory. His mission takes him through all manner of natural and supernatural challenges before Sadak reaches his goal. The Sultan tries to use the waters on Sadak’s wife to seduce her, but in the end he falls victim to them, and dies. Sadak then becomes Sultan himself.

Martin shows Sadak struggling up huge boulders in the foreground, as he nears the waters of his quest. The painting already has the apocalyptic appearances which became so characteristic of many of Martin’s works.

Macbeth (1820)

William Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth has remained a popular play, and has frequently been used for narrative paintings. In this early scene, the three witches meet with Macbeth and Banquo on a “heath”. Macbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquo are King Duncan of Scotland’s generals, who have just defeated the allied armies of Norway and Ireland. The witches address Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor (which he is not), and “King hereafter”. The witches are more enigmatic in their pronouncements for Banquo’s future, then they vanish.

Three witches materialise from a swirl of mist and lightning bolts on the left, and Macbeth and Banquo appear surprised at their sudden arrival. Even on the original large canvas, their figures are too small to read facial expressions, although their body language does indicate surprise. Winding around the shores of the distant lake is the huge army, and Martin has turned the Scottish Highlands into rugged Alpine scenery of the Burkean sublime – an indication of the much greater outcome of the meeting.

Belshazzar’s Feast (1820)

See the previous article for comment and analysis.

Diogenes Throwing Away His Cup (1833)

Diogenes of Sinope (alias the Cynic) (412/404-323 BCE) was a major and controversial Greek philosopher. Despite his cynicism, he was logically very consistent by nature. One story tells of discovery of a young man drinking from his cupped hands. Seeing this, Diogenes threw his cup away, uttering the words “a child has beaten me in plainness of living.” This scene was shown by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) in his Landscape with Diogenes (1648), which was the basis for Martin’s version.

Martin’s fine watercolour changes the setting, using an imagined version of ancient Athens with the Parthenon dominating the distant buildings. With rolling hills, lakes, and more woodland than shown by Poussin, the slight mist exaggerates the aerial perspective. In the foreground are Diogenes and the young man, arranged fairly similarly to those in Poussin’s painting, but relatively smaller in the landscape. There are minimal cues and clues to the narrative.

The Deluge (1834)

This painting shares two points of reference: the biblical account of the flood, in Genesis, in which God punishes human wickedness by destroying all life on earth except the few people and pairs of animals which were in Noah’s Ark, and Martin’s personal belief in prior catastrophe.

As the sciences became ascendant during the nineteenth century, some educated people believed that in the past there had been an alignment of the sun, earth, and moon, and the collision of a comet, which had resulted in global flooding. This was promoted by the French natural scientist Baron Georges Cuvier, and subscribed to by Martin.

True to form, Martin’s painting is dark and apocalyptic: near the centre, tiny survivors are just about to be overwhelmed by an immense wave, which bears down at them from the left and above. The misaligned sun and moon barely penetrate the dense cloud, and to the top right is a melée of rock avalanche and lightning bolt. This was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1835.

Manfred and the Alpine Witch (1837)

Manfred: A Dramatic Poem was written by Lord Byron in 1816-7 following his ostracisation over alleged incest with his half-sister. Its hero, Manfred, is tortured by guilt in relation to the death of his beloved Astarte. Living in the Bernese Alps, he casts spells to summon seven spirits to help him forget and sublimate his guilt. As the spirits cannot control past events, he does not achieve his aim, and cannot even escape by suicide. In the end, he dies.

Martin’s watercolour shows Manfred conjuring a witch from a flooded cave in the mountains. Unusually light and sublime but not apocalyptic, it is perhaps one of his most beautiful works, and reminiscent of Turner’s.

The Destruction of Tyre (1840)

Tyre was the great Phoenician port on the Mediterranean coast, claimed to have been the origin of navigation and sea trade. Its importance and the generally good nature of its merchants and other citizens allowed it to be spared destruction for a long time. However the prophet Ezekiel (chapter 26) fortold that one day, many nations would come against Tyre, would put the city under siege, break her walls down, that the fabric of the city would be cast into the sea, and it would never be rebuilt.

Nebuchadnezzar put Tyre under siege in 573 BCE, and eventually Alexander the Great destroyed the city in 332 BCE.

Martin brings the forces of nature in to help destroy the port, with a storm great enough to sink many vessels, leaving their prows floating like sea monsters. In the distance is his standard lightning bolt, and the city has clearly been broken down to fragments of masonry.

Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still (c 1840)

During his conquest of Canaan for the land of the Israelites, Joshua, their leader, brought his army to fight the Canaanites at Gibeon. To maintain daylight, and allow the battle to continue, Joshua called upon God to cause the sun and moon to stand still. This he did, and called up a storm of heavy rain and hailstones which further hampered the Canaanites. As a result of this divine intervention, Joshua led the Israelites to victory.

This later version of an much earlier original (1816, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) is half the size but loses none of the awe of the first. Joshua is on a rock platform just below the centre of the painting, the armies stretching from the gates of the city at the right, all the way down into the valley at the left. The storm rages on the Canaanites in the valley below, while the clouds have parted over the Israelites to the right. It is unusual for the changing weather to play such a central role in narrative.

The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah (1852)

The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah has become so deeply embedded in western culture that Sodom has entered several European languages. The events are told in Genesis, which places the two among five cities on the plain just north of the Dead Sea, on the River Jordan. Because of their grievous sin, God determined that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed.

One family living (righteously) in Sodom at the time was Abraham’s nephew Lot; following negotiation, God agreed that he would spare the lives of Lot and his family, so they were visited by angels. Those angels told Lot to gather his family and leave, but not to look back. As Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed “by fire and brimstone”, Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

A popular story for paintings, another bizarre story about Lot has become even more common in narrative painting: that of Lot’s two daughters later getting him drunk and ‘laying down with him’ to conceive children by him, normally titled Lot and his Daughters.

Martin’s huge storm of fire and brimstone shows the destruction of the cities as if in the heart of a furnace from the ironworks of the day. Lot and his two daughters are seen in the right foreground, walking away and not looking back. In the middle distance, Lot’s wife is straggling behind, looking back, and is just about to the struck by a lightning bolt which will turn her into a pillar of salt. This is Martin at his most awe-inspiring.

The Great Day of his Wrath (1851-3)

At the same time that he was painting The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah, Martin was working on his huge final canvas in the triptych entitled The Last Judgement.

Here he tackles what should be a major narrative challenge: depicting the future in a painting, a medium without time or tenses. In practice, its placement in time is almost irrelevant, as it revels in the sublime and awe-inspiring, as Martin’s final vision of the apocalypse.

Conclusions

Martin was a very unconventional narrative painter, who by working on such grand scales was able to ignore Alberti’s laws. In doing so, the awe that his paintings inspired was cosmic in scale, but highly impersonal. His figures are so tiny as to be devoid of emotion or feelings, like ants. His subjects and themes were strong, but never that emotional or emotive. That allowed the viewer more detachment from the narrative, which was perhaps just what the Victorians wanted.

References

Wikipedia

Morden BC (2010) John Martin. Apocalypse Now! McNidder & Grace. ISBN 978 1 90479 499 8.

Walter Crane (1845–1915) was one of the most popular, most prolific, and most influential illustrators of children’s books. An enthusiastic fan of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, he was a close friend of William Morris, a key member of the Arts and Crafts movement, and an overt and active Socialist.

His career in illustration began in 1863, when Edmund Evans employed him to illustrate ‘toy books’ for children, and he continued to create book illustrations until after 1900. In the later years, he extended his repertoire to include special editions of the Faerie Queene, a volume of Arthurian legends, and a book about the New Forest.

However his career in painting had started when his first work had been accepted by the Royal Academy in 1862, and he continued to paint independently of his illustrations, later making several murals. In addition to landscapes, he painted narrative works, but before considering a selection of those I would first like to examine how his illustrations differed.

Illustrations

Crane’s illustration for Baby’s Own Aesop (1887), engraved by Edmund Evans, underlines many of the differences between such illustrations and narrative paintings. First, complying with my rule of thumb, the illustration here supports the text on the page, and does not stand alone from it. Look at the picture and you could hardly deduce the accompanying text, but put the two together and you can see how the picture depicts the narrative in the text. Illustrators also have to be careful to ensure that there are no disparities between their work and the text, although narrative paintings often depart from a literal representation.

There are other stylistic clues, such as the use of drawn outlines throughout illustrations, and plain, simple drawings, which are much more likely in illustrations than in standalone paintings, although from the late 1800s onwards these appeared increasingly in paintings.

Original artwork for illustration can become more difficult to classify, as shown in this watercolour and ink drawing for The Mirror, one of Crane’s illustrations for Arthur Kelly’s The Rosebud and Other Tales (1909). Here we must fall back on the artist’s intent, which was clearly illustration, and he did not attempt to exhibit this, say, with his other drawings as a narrative series of paintings. This is quite a different process from that seen in Hogarth’s narrative paintings, for example.

The Lady of Shalott (1862)

Crane was one of the first artists to base a painting on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s (1809–1892) poem The Lady of Shalott, published in 1833 and 1842. This tells part of the Arthurian legends, that of Elaine of Astolat, as given in an Italian novella from the 1200s, from which it gets its title.

The Lady of Shalott lives in a castle connected to Camelot by a river. She is subject to a mysterious curse which confines her to weaving images on her loom, and must not look directly at the outside world. One day, while she sits and weaves, she catches sight of the knight Lancelot. She stops weaving and looks out of her window directly towards Camelot, invoking the curse. She then abandons her castle, finds a boat on which she writes her name, then floats downriver to Camelot, dying before she arrives there. Lancelot sees her body, and the poem ends:

But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Crane shows the Lady white in death, laid out in her boat, tresses and flowing sleeve draped over its gunwhales into the still water at the river’s edge. This is set in an ancient wood, in dramatic twilight, presumably dusk. This painting was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy, and must have influenced JW Waterhouse’s much better-known version of just over 25 years later.

Ruth and Boaz (1863)

According to various sources in the Bible, Boaz was a wealthy landowner in Bethlehem, in Old Testament times. He noticed Ruth, a widow, who was in such difficult financial circumstances that she came to glean grain from his fields. Boaz invited her to eat with him and his workers, and started to deliberately leave grain for her to glean. Because they were distantly related, Ruth then asked Boaz to exercise right of kinship and marry her. They had children, and David was their great-grandson.

Crane’s painting, which is in oils despite resembling a watercolour illustration, shows the couple at the end of lunch, during Ruth’s gleaning. Their dress is an odd composite of the Biblical and Arthurian. She is looking down at her hands, as if contemplating grain held in her left palm. He has turned and looks towards her. In the background Boaz’s workers continue the harvest, and saddled horses are idle, a castellated house set in the crag behind them.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1865)

This is based on a ballad of the same name (meaning ‘the beautiful lady without mercy’) written by John Keats in 1819, and later revised slightly. It gives a simple story of love and death, including the verses:
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

Again, Crane is one of the earlier artists to represent this in a painting, with subsequent similar depictions by Arthur Hughes and Frank Dicksee. The ‘belle dame’ of the title is shown riding side-saddle on the knight’s horse, flowers in her long, flowing tresses, and the knight (clad in armour and heraldic overgarments) holds her hand.

The Renaissance of Venus (1877)

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c 1486) is one of the world’s most famous paintings, and shows the goddess Venus, when she was born from the waters as an adult, arriving at the shore.

Crane bases his Venus on Botticelli’s representation, and links her rebirth back to the Renaissance. She is stood at the edge of a placid sea, the water just above her ankles. Three attendant graces are also getting out of the water in the middle distance, but appear to have been bathing. A train of white doves flies down and behind Venus, to start landing on the shore at the right. In the distance are the remains of a classical building at the water’s edge, and what appears to be a section of Mediterranean coastline. Further out at sea, a sailing boat passes by. Crane painted this in tempera, as Botticelli did his original.

The Fate of Persephone (1878)

In classical Greek mythology, Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, is the queen of the underworld. She acquired that role when Hades, god of the underworld, was overcome with love and lust from one of Cupid’s arrows, and had seen Persephone picking flowers with friends. Hades then abducted her to be his queen.

Crane shows Persephone at the moment of her abduction. She had been picking spring flowers in the meadow with the three other women shown at the left. Hades brought his chariot, complete with its pair of black horses symbolising the underworld, and is seen gripping Persephone’s right arm, ready to move her into the chariot and make off.

It is remarkable how, although their body language is emphatic and clear, each of the five figures has a completely neutral facial expression. This helps make it appear like a frieze, an effect probably enhanced by Crane’s use of oil and tempera. The horses appear in complete contrast, champing at their bits and poised to set off at a gallop: another feature which is common in friezes.

The Roll of Fate (1882)

This painting was originally shown with the following excerpt from Edward FitzGerald’s popular translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
Would that some winged angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!

Ah love! could you and I with him conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits – and then
Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire!

Here a male winged angel is shown on bended knee before the figure of Time. The latter holds his scroll, on which the destiny of all mankind is recorded. The angel’s hands are intertwined with those of Time: each right hand grasps the quill which is used to record destiny, each left hand the other end of the scroll. The angel looks up, pleading, at Time, but Time looks down at him with a frowning scowl.

In front of the dais on which the angel kneels and Time sits is an hour glass. The whole is set inside a circular building which shows the stars through its roof, like a planetarium.

I think that this is one of Crane’s most successful narrative paintings, with its excellent use of facial expression and ingenious body language. This gives it an emotional depth which contrasts with his previous narratives which have either been static or devoid of emotional expression.

Diana and Endymion (1883)

Endymion was a classical Greek mythological character, an Aeolian shepherd. Although accounts differ, there are threads which run that Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon (in Roman terminology, Diana), fell in love with Endymion, when she found him asleep one day. Selene/Diana asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth, which resulted in him remaining in eternal sleep. In spite of his somnolence, Selene/Diana still managed to have fifty daughters by him.

In this beautiful pastoral watercolour, Endymion is seen, fast asleep, in a meadow. Diana is in her other role, as hunter, with her dogs, bow and arrows. Endymion’s flock of sheep is in the distance. Crane’s narrative has reverted to its earlier, more static form.

The Bridge of Life (1884)

Crane’s allegorical narrative of life as a bridge appears unique to him. It shows a newborn baby arriving in the hand of a winged angel in a white punt/gondola, left of centre. The baby is handed over to a mother or nurse, fed at the breast at the bottom left corner, walking up the steps, and learning at the top. Children play, then grow into young adults, and marry as they reach the top of the bridge. Throughout this runs the thread of life.

The mature adult in the middle of the bridge (by its keystone) then ages steadily, bearing the whole globe during the descent. He then gains a long white beard and walking stick during the descent into old age, finally dying, his body being placed in the black punt/gondola, where it is attended by the angel of death. Grieving relatives stand on the shore and make their farewells, one cutting the thread securing the boat to the shore with a pair of traditional scissors.

Britomart (1900)

Britomart has her origins in Britomartis, the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting, who passed into Greek mythology as a mountain nymph. She was adopted by Edmund Spenser in his epic The Faerie Queene as an allegory of virtue, based largely on military might. She is also held to represent Queen Elizabeth I. As one of the few female knights in myth and literature, she has more recently been adopted as an emblem of female power.

In Spenser’s account, Britomart is young and beautiful, and falls in love with Artegal when she first sees his face in her father’s enchanted mirror. She sets off on a quest to find him, carrying an enchanted lance which defeats all, until she loses to Artegal himself. Her quest takes her around the world, on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Isis, and to visit Merlin the magician. Eventually she finds Artegal who has been captured by the evil Radigund, and frees him and several other captured knights.

Britomart is shown on a very English beach – the chalk cliffs of the south coast behind her – staring wistfully into the distance, her chin propped on the heel of her right hand. She wears full armour, mixed with more feminine clothing. Her left arm rests on her shield, the enchanted lance beside her, and her helmet on a dune behind her.

Conclusions

As with many of the Pre-Raphaelites and others who came under their influence, most of Crane’s narrative paintings are static, and many are surprisingly emotionally cold. His two more allegorical works – The Roll of Fate and The Bridge of Life – were probably his most strongly narrative, with only the former making full use of facial expressions to impart emotion. This is puzzling, given his extensive experience illustrating events within narratives, and confirms his aim of art for art’s sake, and his primarily decorative leaning.

References

Wikipedia

O’Neill M (2010) Walter Crane. The Arts and Crafts, Painting, and Politics, 1875-1890, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 16768 9.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 was a catastrophe for France.

The Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck appeared to provoke the French to declare war, which they did on 16 July 1870. Despite Napoleon III’s generals assuring him of France’s military superiority, the Prussians enjoyed a series of swift victories in north-eastern France, culminating in the Siege of Paris, and the fall of the capital on 28 January 1871. That was followed by the Paris Commune, which Napoleon’s army did not suppress until the end of May.

France lost its Emperor – overthrown on 4 September 1870 – many of the buildings of Paris such as the Tuileries Palace, a 5 billion franc war reparation payment to Prussia, all the additional territory it had gained since the 1780s, Alsace and Lorraine, and of course the Impressionist Frédéric Bazille was killed in the fighting.

For Évariste Vital Luminais (1822–1896) the post-war national desire for revenge (‘revanchism’) turned out to the good. Trained at the École des Beaux-arts in Paris under Léon Cogniet, and in the studio of Constant Troyon, he had already been successful in the Salon, first being accepted in 1843, and receiving the Legion of Honour in 1869. He painted horses particularly well, and had enjoyed success with some modestly social-realist genre paintings, with some forays into French history too.

From about 1870 until his death, Luminais was to prove one of the most popular and successful of the exhibitors in the Salon, with a series of paintings showing the glorious past of France – looking back to a time when the Kingdom of the Franks encompassed much of Europe to the west of the Rhine, under the Merovingian Empire.

After the Duel (date not known)

Possibly dating from before the war, and almost certainly originally in colour, Luminais shows the injured party from a duel, collapsed, his eyes closed. Listening attentively to his chest is an old man, possibly a physician. Above him are the two cloaked seconds from his team, an older man, and a beautiful woman, who is talking while she pours reviving spirits on a handkerchief. Behind and to the right is a young boy, trying to peer over the woman to see what is going on, and holding a small lidded jug on a tray.

This is a good example of Luminais’ textbook use of tight composition, facial expressions, and body language. Sadly I have been unable to discover any context into which to place this event, although it could be the same farcical duel in fancy dress from the winter of 1856-7 depicted by Gérôme.

The Gauls in sight of Rome (1870)

Although the Gauls had been conquered by the Roman Empire from 58 BCE onwards, leading to as many as a million of their deaths, the Franks had defeated the Gallo-Romans in the Battle of Soissons in 486. This established Merovingian rule by the first kings of what equates to modern France.

Northern Italy had been inhabited by Celts from the 13th century BCE until it was conquered by the Romans in the 220s BCE, in an area known now as Cisalpine Gaul, but it had never reached anywhere close to Rome. Even at the height of the Merovingian Empire, it did not extend into the north of Italy.

Luminais’ painting showing groups of Gauls on horseback descending from the brow of a hill to the north-west of Rome towards the distant city is, therefore, probably fanciful. In narrative terms it is most interesting because – like Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa – it obscures its most important pictorial element, the city of Rome, and makes it as insignificant as possible without actually hiding it from view. Perhaps in this case it confirms its illusory nature.

The Sons of Clovis II and their failed revolt

Clovis II (637-657/8) was king of Neustria and Burgundy from 639, initially with his mother acting as regent, then a succession of influential nobles. He married Balthild, an Anglo-Saxon aristocrat who had been sold into slavery in Gaul. They had three sons: Chlothar (who succeeded Clovis), Childeric, and Theuderic.

A persistent legend grew up that, in about 660 (by which time Clovis was already dead), Clovis went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Whilst he was away, he entrusted his kingdom to his oldest son, Chlothar, under Balthild’s regency. However his older two sons fell out with their mother, and conspired to seize power from her. Clovis rushed back to control this revolt, and ponder what to do with his sons.

Clovis wanted to execute them both, but Balthild proposed punishment which would deprive their limbs of all power, so they could not revolt again. Although the language is ambiguous, it appears that the main tendons, particularly those of the hamstrings, were cut in their arms and legs, although this is referred to as énervé in the French. The helpless boys were placed on a raft on the river Seine, and floated downstream to Jumièges, near Rouen, where Saint Philibert took them in and gave them shelter.

Luminais made a series of studies for his major work showing the legendary scene of the two boys floating in their bed-like raft on the Seine. He then painted the finished work, The Sons of Clovis II (1880), now in Sydney, Australia.

From that he made a copy, now in Rouen, in which he elaborated the detail at the foot of the raft.

These are curious paintings of an even stranger – and almost certainly fictitious – legend.

The Flight of King Gradlon

Luminais didn’t only celebrate the Merovingians in paint, but he also painted Breton legendary history. Gradlon the Great (Gradlon Meur or Mawr) was ‘king’ of Cornouaille, in the south-west of the Brittany peninsula, during the fifth century (400s). His legends are associated with the story of the submerged city of Ys.

Gradlon fell in love with Malgven, the Queen of the North, and the pair killed her husband, the King of the North. She bore him a daughter, Dahut, who was possessed by a half-fairy, half-woman who had been rejected by Gradlon in the past. Dahut turned the city of Ys into a place of sin and debauchery. However, it was below sea level, and relied on walls and a sea gate to keep the waters out.

One night, when she was drunk, Dahut stole the key to the sea gate from her sleeping father, and opened the gate, flooding the city. Gradlon woke up and rescued Dahut from the city on his enchanted horse, but her sins kept dragging them back into the sea. Eventually Saint Guénolé (Gwendole or Winwaloe) pushed Dahut into the waves, which were immediately calmed. She was engulfed by the sea, and became a type of siren.

The version known as The Flight of St. Guénolé and King Gradlon (1884) at Rennes is clearly a late study, showing Gradlon on the right, with Dahut still clinging onto him, and Saint Guénolé riding alongside, gesticulating with his right hand. The remains of Ys are still visible on the horizon.

The finished version, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) and now at Quimper, is a superb narrative painting, and shows Luminais’ skill at painting horses, as well as capturing motion frozen almost photographically. Now it is Gradlon who is seen thrusting Dahut away from him, as his horse rears up to help shed its burden.

With such strong action and body language, Luminais has no need of facial expression, which is just as well given the fact that each of the three human faces is at least partly obscured. The two horses make up for the humans.

The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Chilperic I is not to be confused with the better-known Childeric I (440-481/2) who was the father of Clovis I. Just to make matters more complicated, there was also a Chilperic I who was the king of Burgundy from 473 until about 480. I believe that this painting shows King Chilperic I of Neustria (or Soissons), born in around 539, crowned in 561, and murdered in September 584.

Although they were not entitled, Chilperic’s brothers forced him to share his kingdom, with his eldest brother Charibert becoming king of Paris until he died in 567, when Paris was shared between the four brothers. Unpopular with the church, he was returning from a hunting expedition to his royal villa of Chelles when he was stabbed to death.

The only motivation that I can see for Chilperic’s death to be commemorated in a painting is that an operetta about his life was first performed in 1864, and may have been undergoing revival at the time.

Luminais shows a servant and a courtier carrying Chilperic’s body onto a small timber platform. In the distance, caught in a patch of sunlight, the rest of the hunting party is seen.

Psyché (1886)

Luminais also painted conventional mythological narratives, including that of Psyche.

Psyche and her love for Cupid is the central thread in the novel written by Apuleius in the second century CE, which was lost and rediscovered in the Renaissance. Psyche was the youngest of three daughters of a king and queen. Because of rumours about her being an incarnation of Venus, Venus herself was offended, and ordered Cupid to exact revenge. However, Cupid instead scratched himself with one of his own arrows, and fell helplessly in love with Psyche.

Cupid managed to marry Psyche by stealth, and made her pregnant. However Psyche was not aware that Cupid was her husband, and tried to see and kill the monster which she was convinced slept with her each night. Instead she wounded herself on one of Cupid’s arrows, and was struck by the feverish passion of love too.

She then set off on a quest to find her husband. This took her through a succession of trials imposed by Venus. The last of these was to take a box (in Greek, pyxis) to obtain a dose of the beauty of Proserpine, the Queen of the Underworld. Psyche made her way to the entrance to the underworld, and paid Charon the ferryman two coins for her return trip. Proserpine provided the dose as pleaded by Psyche, and she set off on her return. Eventually Jupiter had a proper wedding arranged for Psyche and Cupid, and everything was regularised.

Luminais chooses to show what is probably the key moment in the whole novel, and a peripeteia of sorts: Psyche, picked out in white and clutching the pyxis in both hands, being rowed across to the underworld by Charon, with a boatful of the dead. She stares straight at the viewer, an unusual and powerful pictorial choice.

The Abduction (1887-9)

A recurring theme in other paintings, including the next, is that of the ‘primitive’ carrying off an abducted woman. Just as the British have a stereotype of Vikings landing and carrying away many of their women, so there are parallels with warring tribes throughout Europe.

What makes this painting unusual is that both the abductor, a well-muscled man with red hair (indicating Celtic roots), and the abducted, a shapely young woman with long black hair, are completely naked. Once again Luminais paints the horse bearing them with finesse, as it wades across the river towards the opposite bank.

Norman Pirates of the Ninth Century (1894)

To the British, the Normans, who invaded Britain following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, were French. In truth they had also invaded the north (Channel) coast of France from their Norse origins, and were as alien to the French as to the British. Set in the ninth century, before the Duchy of Normandy became established as a fiefdom in 911, this painting shows Norsemen busy doing what the stereotype holds as their characteristic activity: coming by sea, landing, raping and pillaging, then carrying off the best of the surviving women, back to their base.

The woman shown being manhandled back to a boat is very fair of skin and has long blonde hair, in contrast to the Normans, who have red and brown hair. In Luminais’ simplified racial code, this would make the men Celtic, which seems puzzling in the context of his other paintings.

Conclusions

Luminais was active, and highly successful in the Salon and commercially, during a time of great change in French painting, with the rise of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. His paintings were hung alongside those of Gérôme, another vividly realistic painter who showed Orientalist and Roman spectacle.

With almost no accessible literature available on Luminais, and a small range of his works available, it is impossible to do him justice. What I see in his Flight of King Gradlon (Quimper) and his Psyché suggests that history has done him great disfavour. I would love to see more of his work.

References

Wikipedia (in French).
Les Énervés de Jumièges – the strange legend (in French).

This is an index of the 91 well-known stories and narratives which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, and for each gives the type of narrative and its origin, then links to the paintings featured in articles here. I am also preparing illustrated indexes: because these are so large, I am going to divide them into subject area, e.g. classical mythology, Biblical, etc.

Achilles and Agamemnon (Greek tragedy, Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, retold by Racine) David, The Anger of Achilles (1819)

American Werewolf in London, An (comedy horror movie, 1981) Wright, Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008)

Androcles and the Lion (Roman tale, Aulus Gellius, widespread in Europe) Gérôme, Androcles (c 1902)

Angelica and Medoro (epic poetry, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1516) Delacroix, Angelica and the Wounded Medoro (c 1860)

Antiochus and Stratonice (Classical history, Plutarch, Lives) David, Antiochus and Stratonica (1774)

Bathsheba and King David (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) Gérôme, Bathsheba (1889/95)

Belle Dame Sans Merci, La (poem, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819) Crane, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1865)

Belshazzar’s Feast (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638); Martin, Belshazzar’s Feast (1820); Allston, Belshazzar’s Feast (1817/1843)

Benaiah (Biblical, Old Testament, Samuel II) Etty, Benaiah (small copy) (1829)

Britomart (epic poem, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene) Etty, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret (1833) Crane, Britomart (1900)

Brutus, execution of sons (Roman history, c 509 BCE) David, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)

Candaules, King of Lydia (shows wife to Gyges) (Classical history, Herodotus) Etty, Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed (1830)

Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale (poetry, Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) Burne-Jones, The Prioress’s Tale (1869-1898)

Chilperic I, murder (French history, 584) Luminais, The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Chloris/Flora and Zephyrus (Classical myth, Ovid, Fasti book 5) Botticelli, Primavera (Spring) (c 1482)

Christ, Crucifixion (Biblical, New Testament) Gérôme, Golgotha (Consummatum Est, or Jerusalem) (1867)

Christ, Deposition (Biblical, New Testament) Böcklin, The Deposition (1876)

Christ, Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) (Biblical, New Testament) Doré, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (before 1876)

Christ, Feasts – Marriage Feast at Cana, Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, Feast in the House of Levi (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-3); The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (1570); The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) (also, originally, The Last Supper)

Christ, Supper at Emmaus (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Supper at Emmaus (c 1559)

Christ, The Last Supper (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Last Supper (c 1585)

Cinderella (folk tale, Europe) Burne-Jones, Cinderella (1863); Millais, Cinderella (1881)

Cleopatra and Caesar (Roman history, 47 BCE) Gérôme, Cleopatra before Caesar (1866)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Dante and Virgil (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Degas, Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell (1857-8) Doré, Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of hell (1861)

Diana and Endymion (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, Diana and Endymion (1883)

Dibutades, Maid of Corinth, inventor of painting (Classical legend) Wright of Derby, The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5)

Diogenes, throwing away his cup (Greek history, c 350 BCE) Poussin, Landscape with Diogenes (1648); Martin, Diogenes Throwing Away His Cup (1833)

Echo and Narcissus (Classical myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3) Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus (1903)

Flood (Biblical, Old Testament, Genesis) Martin, The Deluge (1834)

Friday 13th (horror movie, 1980) Doig, Echo Lake (1988); Canoe-Lake (1997-8)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Hercules and the Hydra (Greek myth, the Labours of Hercules) Moreau, Hercules and the Lernean Hydra (1876)

Hero and Leander (Greek myth, Musaeus) Turner, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) Etty, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1827); Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body (1829)

Horatii and Curiatii (Roman legend/history, Livy, Dionysius) David, The Oath of the Horatii (1784-5)

Jael and Sisera – see Judith and Holofernes

Jason and Medea (Classical story, Jason and the Golden Fleece) Moreau, Jason (1865) Waterhouse, Jason and Medea (1907)

John the Baptist and Salome (Biblical, New Testament) Moreau, Salome (1876)

Joshua, commanding the sun at Gibeon (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still (c 1840)

Judith and Holofernes (Biblical, Old Testament Apocrypha, Judith) Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1611-2, 1620-1); Veronese, Caravaggio, Bigot (also Jael and Sisera) Etty, Study for Judith and Holofernes (c 1827) Doré, Judith and Holofernes (1866) Vernet, Judith and Holofernes (study) (1828/1832)

Julius Caesar, Assassination (Roman history, 44 BCE) Gérôme, The Death of Caesar (1859-67)

Jupiter and Semele (Greek myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Moreau, Jupiter and Semele (1895)

Lucretia (Roman history, c 510-507 BCE) Rembrandt, Lucretia (1664, 1666); Veronese, Gentileschi, Kneller

Macbeth (Shakespeare, play, Macbeth) Martin, Macbeth (1820)

Madeline and Porphyro (The Eve of St Agnes) (Poem, John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 1819) Hunt, The flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the drunkenness attending the revelry (The Eve of St. Agnes) (study) (1848)

Malade Imaginaire, Le (The Imaginary Invalid, Argan) (play, Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire, 1673) Daumier, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) (c 1860-2)

Manfred (poem, Lord Byron, Manfred: A Dramatic Poem, 1816-7) Martin, Manfred and the Alpine Witch (1837)

Marat, assassination (French history, 1793) David, Marat Assassinated (1793)

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Execution (French history, 1867) Manet, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Mazeppa (poem, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, 1819) Vernet, Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826)

Medusa, The Raft of the (French history, 1816) Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-9)

Merlin and Nimue (Arthurian legend, various re-tellings) Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (1870-4)

Musidora (poem, James Thomson, Summer, 1727) Etty, Musidora: The Bather ‘At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’ (replica) (c 1846)

Nessus and Deianira (Classical myth) Böcklin, Nessus and Deianira (1898)

Ney, Marshall Michel, Death (French history, 1815) Gérôme, The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Calypso (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Böcklin, Odysseus and Calypso (1883)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Circe (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Penelope (wife) (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Wright of Derby, Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamp-light (1785)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Polyphemus (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Böcklin, Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Sirens (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) Böcklin, Sirens (1875)

Oedipus and the Sphinx (Greek legend) Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808, 1827); Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)

Ophelia (Shakespeare, play, Hamlet, Act IV scene vii) Millais, Ophelia (1851-2)

Orpheus and Eurydice (Classical myth, Virgil, Georgics, and Ovid, Metamorphoses) Corot, Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Doré, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (1863)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

Paris, Judgement of (Classical myth) Renoir, The Judgement of Paris (c 1908, c 1908-10); Cézanne, The Judgment of Paris (1862-4)

Persephone and Hades (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, The Fate of Persephone (1878)

Phryné and the Areopagus (Greek history, Athenaeus and others, c 350 BCE) Gérôme, Phryné before the Areopagus (1861)

Pilgrim’s Progress (allegorical novel, John Bunyan, 1678) Palmer, Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation (1848); The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress (1851)

Psyche and Cupid (Classical mythology, Apuleius) Luminais, Psyché (1886)

Pygmalion and Galatea (Greek legend, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (study) (1890)

Quixote, Don (novel, Miguel Cervantes, 1605, 1615) Daumier, Don Quixote and the Dead Mule (1867)

Rinaldo and Armida (epic poetry, Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) Poussin, Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630) (also Tancred and Erminia) van Dyck, Vassallo, Lippi, van Mieris, Conca, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Zugno, Cades, Hoet the Elder, Kauffman, de la Fosse, Muller, Stillman Collier, The Garden of Armida (1899)

Roger and Angelica (epic poem, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso) Ingres, Roger (Ruggiero) Rescuing Angelica (1819) Böcklin, Roger freeing Angelica (1873, 1879-80)

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, play, Romeo and Juliet, 1597) Wright of Derby, Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene (1790)

Romulus, victory over Acron (Roman history, Plutarch) Ingres, Romulus’ Victory over Acron, (1812)

Ruth and Boaz (Biblical, Old Testament) Crane, Ruth and Boaz (1863)

Sabine Women, Intervention (Roman history) David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)

Sadak (novel, James Ridley, Tales of the Genii, 1764) Martin, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812)

Saint Anthony, Temptation (Saints, c 200 CE) Cézanne, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1875)

Samson and Delilah (Biblical, Old Testament, Judges) Etty, Delilah before the Blinded Samson (date not known)

Sardanapalus, Death of (Greek history and later play by Byron, 1821) Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

Shalott, Lady of (Poem, Arthurian, Tennyson, 1833) Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (1888); “I am Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1915) Crane, The Lady of Shalott (1862)

Sleeping Beauty (folk tale, Europe, Brothers Grimm and others) Collier, The Sleeping Beauty (1921)

Snow White (folk tale, Europe) Rego, Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995)

Socrates, death (Greek history, 399 BCE, Plato, Phaedo) David, The Death of Socrates (1787)

Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah (1852)

Tancred and Erminia – see Rinaldo and Armida

Tristan and Isolde (Arthurian legend, Persian origin) Waterhouse, Tristan and Isolde (1916)

Vale of Tears (Biblical, Old Testament, Psalm 83) Doré, The Vale of Tears (unfinished) (1883)

Yellow Rose of Texas (folk song, USA) Wright, The Yellow Rose of Texas (2008)

This is an index of the 35 well-known stories and narratives from classical Greek and Roman sources which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Achilles and Agamemnon (Greek tragedy, Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, retold by Racine) David, The Anger of Achilles (1819)

Androcles and the Lion (Roman tale, Aulus Gellius, widespread in Europe) Gérôme, Androcles (c 1902)

Antiochus and Stratonice (Classical history, Plutarch, Lives) David, Antiochus and Stratonica (1774)

Brutus, execution of sons (Roman history, c 509 BCE) David, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)

Candaules, King of Lydia (shows wife to Gyges) (Classical history, Herodotus) Etty, Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed (1830)

Chloris/Flora and Zephyrus (Classical myth, Ovid, Fasti book 5) Botticelli, Primavera (Spring) (c 1482)

Cleopatra and Caesar (Roman history, 47 BCE) Gérôme, Cleopatra before Caesar (1866)

Diana and Endymion (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, Diana and Endymion (1883)

Dibutades, Maid of Corinth, inventor of painting (Classical legend) Wright of Derby, The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5)

Diogenes, throwing away his cup (Greek history, c 350 BCE) Poussin, Landscape with Diogenes (1648); Martin, Diogenes Throwing Away His Cup (1833)

Echo and Narcissus (Classical myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3) Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus (1903)

Hercules and the Hydra (Greek myth, the Labours of Hercules) Moreau, Hercules and the Lernean Hydra (1876)

Hero and Leander (Greek myth, Musaeus) Turner, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) Etty, The Parting of Hero and Leander (1827); Hero, Having Thrown herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body (1829)

Horatii and Curiatii (Roman legend/history, Livy, Dionysius) David, The Oath of the Horatii (1784-5)

Jason and Medea (Classical story, Jason and the Golden Fleece) Moreau, Jason (1865) Waterhouse, Jason and Medea (1907)

Julius Caesar, Assassination (Roman history, 44 BCE) Gérôme, The Death of Caesar (1859-67)

Jupiter and Semele (Greek myth, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Moreau, Jupiter and Semele (1895)

Lucretia (Roman history, c 510-507 BCE) Rembrandt, Lucretia (1664, 1666); Veronese, Gentileschi, Kneller

Nessus and Deianira (Classical myth) Böcklin, Nessus and Deianira (1898)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Calypso (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Böcklin, Odysseus and Calypso (1883)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Circe (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Penelope (wife) (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Wright of Derby, Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamp-light (1785)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Polyphemus (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Böcklin, Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)

Odysseus/Ulysses and Sirens (Classical epic poetry, Homer, Odyssey) Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) Böcklin, Sirens (1875)

Oedipus and the Sphinx (Greek legend) Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1808, 1827); Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)

Orpheus and Eurydice (Classical myth, Virgil, Georgics, and Ovid, Metamorphoses) Corot, Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)

Paris, Judgement of (Classical myth) Renoir, The Judgement of Paris (c 1908, c 1908-10); Cézanne, The Judgment of Paris (1862-4)

Persephone and Hades (Classical Greek mythology) Crane, The Fate of Persephone (1878)

Phryné and the Areopagus (Greek history, Athenaeus and others, c 350 BCE) Gérôme, Phryné before the Areopagus (1861)

Psyche and Cupid (Classical mythology, Apuleius) Luminais, Psyché (1886)

Pygmalion and Galatea (Greek legend, Ovid, Metamorphoses) Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (study) (1890)

Romulus, victory over Acron (Roman history, Plutarch) Ingres, Romulus’ Victory over Acron, (1812)

Sabine Women, Intervention (Roman history) David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)

Sardanapalus, Death of (Greek history and later play by Byron, 1821) Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

Socrates, death (Greek history, 399 BCE, Plato, Phaedo) David, The Death of Socrates (1787)

This is an index of the 19 well-known stories and narratives from Biblical sources (including accounts of the lives of the Saints) which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. classical.

Bathsheba and King David (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) Gérôme, Bathsheba (1889/95)

Belshazzar’s Feast (Biblical, Old Testament) Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638); Martin, Belshazzar’s Feast (1820); Allston, Belshazzar’s Feast (1817/1843)

Benaiah (Biblical, Old Testament, Samuel II) Etty, Benaiah (small copy) (1829)

Christ, Crucifixion (Biblical, New Testament) Gérôme, Golgotha (Consummatum Est, or Jerusalem) (1867)

Christ, Deposition (Biblical, New Testament) Böcklin, The Deposition (1876)

Christ, Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) (Biblical, New Testament) Doré, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem (before 1876)

Christ, Feasts – Marriage Feast at Cana, Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, Feast in the House of Levi (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-3); The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (1570); The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) (also, originally, The Last Supper)

Christ, Supper at Emmaus (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Supper at Emmaus (c 1559)

Christ, The Last Supper (Biblical, New Testament) Veronese, The Last Supper (c 1585)

Flood (Biblical, Old Testament, Genesis) Martin, The Deluge (1834)

Jael and Sisera – see Judith and Holofernes

John the Baptist and Salome (Biblical, New Testament) Moreau, Salome (1876)

Joshua, commanding the sun at Gibeon (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still (c 1840)

Judith and Holofernes (Biblical, Old Testament Apocrypha, Judith) Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1611-2, 1620-1); Veronese, Caravaggio, Bigot (also Jael and Sisera) Etty, Study for Judith and Holofernes (c 1827) Doré, Judith and Holofernes (1866) Vernet, Judith and Holofernes (study) (1828/1832)

Ruth and Boaz (Biblical, Old Testament) Crane, Ruth and Boaz (1863)

Saint Anthony, Temptation (Saints, c 200 CE) Cézanne, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1875)

Samson and Delilah (Biblical, Old Testament, Judges) Etty, Delilah before the Blinded Samson (date not known)

Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction (Biblical, Old Testament) Martin, The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah (1852)

Vale of Tears (Biblical, Old Testament, Psalm 83) Doré, The Vale of Tears (unfinished) (1883)

This is an index of the 32 well-known stories and narratives from post-classical literary and similar sources which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

American Werewolf in London, An (comedy horror movie, 1981) Wright, Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008)

Angelica and Medoro (epic poetry, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1516) Delacroix, Angelica and the Wounded Medoro (c 1860)

Belle Dame Sans Merci, La (poem, John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819) Crane, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1865)

Britomart (epic poem, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene) Etty, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret (1833) Crane, Britomart (1900)

Chaucer, The Prioress’s Tale (poetry, Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) Burne-Jones, The Prioress’s Tale (1869-1898)

Cinderella (folk tale, Europe) Burne-Jones, Cinderella (1863); Millais, Cinderella (1881)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Dante and Virgil (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Degas, Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell (1857-8) Doré, Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of hell (1861)

Friday 13th (horror movie, 1980) Doig, Echo Lake (1988); Canoe-Lake (1997-8)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Macbeth (Shakespeare, play, Macbeth) Martin, Macbeth (1820)

Madeline and Porphyro (The Eve of St Agnes) (Poem, John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, 1819) Hunt, The flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the drunkenness attending the revelry (The Eve of St. Agnes) (study) (1848)

Malade Imaginaire, Le (The Imaginary Invalid, Argan) (play, Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire, 1673) Daumier, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) (c 1860-2)

Manfred (poem, Lord Byron, Manfred: A Dramatic Poem, 1816-7) Martin, Manfred and the Alpine Witch (1837)

Mazeppa (poem, Lord Byron, Mazeppa, 1819) Vernet, Mazeppa and the Wolves (1826)

Merlin and Nimue (Arthurian legend, various re-tellings) Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (1870-4)

Musidora (poem, James Thomson, Summer, 1727) Etty, Musidora: The Bather ‘At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed’ (replica) (c 1846)

Ophelia (Shakespeare, play, Hamlet, Act IV scene vii) Millais, Ophelia (1851-2)

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (epic poem, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 14th century) Doré, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (1863)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

Pilgrim’s Progress (allegorical novel, John Bunyan, 1678) Palmer, Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation (1848); The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress (1851)

Quixote, Don (novel, Miguel Cervantes, 1605, 1615) Daumier, Don Quixote and the Dead Mule (1867)

Rinaldo and Armida (epic poetry, Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) Poussin, Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630) (also Tancred and Erminia) van Dyck, Vassallo, Lippi, van Mieris, Conca, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Zugno, Cades, Hoet the Elder, Kauffman, de la Fosse, Muller, Stillman Collier, The Garden of Armida (1899)

Roger and Angelica (epic poem, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso) Ingres, Roger (Ruggiero) Rescuing Angelica (1819) Böcklin, Roger freeing Angelica (1873, 1879-80)

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, play, Romeo and Juliet, 1597) Wright of Derby, Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene (1790)

Sadak (novel, James Ridley, Tales of the Genii, 1764) Martin, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (1812)

Shalott, Lady of (Poem, Arthurian, Tennyson, 1833) Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott (1888); “I am Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1915) Crane, The Lady of Shalott (1862)

Sleeping Beauty (folk tale, Europe, Brothers Grimm and others) Collier, The Sleeping Beauty (1921)

Snow White (folk tale, Europe) Rego, Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995)

Tancred and Erminia – see Rinaldo and Armida

Tristan and Isolde (Arthurian legend, Persian origin) Waterhouse, Tristan and Isolde (1916)

Yellow Rose of Texas (folk song, USA) Wright, The Yellow Rose of Texas (2008)

This is an index of the 8 well-known stories and narratives from post-classical history which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Chilperic I, murder (French history, 584) Luminais, The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Marat, assassination (French history, 1793) David, Marat Assassinated (1793)

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Execution (French history, 1867) Manet, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Medusa, The Raft of the (French history, 1816) Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-9)

Ney, Marshall Michel, Death (French history, 1815) Gérôme, The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

If ever there was a life described in self-portraits, Rembrandt’s was. You can see the effects of age and his many troubles, his bankruptcy, difficulties with ‘the powers that be’, and the pressures put on Hendrickje Stoffels, his partner in later years. Despite that toll, perhaps because of it, his painting just got better and better.

The one painting from his final years which has had a more mixed reception, but which I think remains one of his most brilliant narrative works, is his Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2). If you were fortunate enough to see it on tour in the exhibition Rembrandt, the Late Works, or in its home at Stockholm’s Nationalmuseum, I hope that you agree.

Narrative

The mighty Roman Empire consisted of a myriad of small tribes scattered throughout its lands. One such tribe was the Batavi, a warlike group of no more than about 35,000 people living in swamp land in the Rhine delta roughly where the southern part of the the Netherlands is today. Its capital was near modern Nijmegen. They had negotiated a good deal in the Empire: rather than pay direct taxes on their lands, like most tribes, they supplied the Roman army with around 5,000 men, many of whom served in the elite regiment of the German Bodyguards.

Their leader at this time was Gaius Julius Civilis, who had a quarter of a century of military service behind him, in the course of which he had lost one eye. In the late 60s CE, the Batavi had become disaffected with Rome. Civilis and his brother were arrested and charged with treason by the emperor Nero, but while Civilis was awaiting trial, Nero was overthrown and then committed suicide. His successor, Galba, acquitted Civilis and allowed him to return to the Batavi, where he was arrested again on the orders of the local Roman governor.

Rome then went through its own crises, with coups and political upheavals, and Batavi military support was suddenly needed. Civilis was released to help the cause, but the disaffection of the Batavi deepened. With civil war raging in the Empire in 69 CE, Civilis led a revolt against the Romans, besieging a camp containing 5,000 Roman legionaries. The following year the Batavi appeared to be gaining the upper hand, but the Romans brought more substantial military forces to bear, and the Batavi made peace again.

This chapter in the history of the Roman Empire is detailed by Tacitus, in The Histories, book 4. Although known in Tacitus’ account as Gaius Julius Civilis, in art history he has become known as Claudius Civilis. The revolt started when Civilis gathered the tribal chiefs and military leaders at “one of the sacred groves”, for a banquet. There he convinced them to join in the rebellion, binding then “with barbarous rites and strange forms of oath”, according to Tacitus.

The Late Rembrandt, Light, and Narrative

Rembrandt had long been well aware of the role of light in bringing intensity to narrative, for example in his Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638).

But in these late years, he was exploring lighting effects even more deeply, as shown in his Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther (1660).

This – another banquet scene but on a completely different scale – was taken from an Old Testament story from the book of Esther, via the contemporary play Hester by Johannes Serwouters, first performed in 1659. The original narrative revolved around Haman, one of King Ahasuerus’ officials, who proposed to hang Mordechai as a scapegoat for the Jewish nation, as revenge for their pride. In this painting, Haman is shown in the shadows on the left, with King Ahasuerus in the centre, and Esther – Mordechai’s cousin and Ahasuerus’s wife – radiant in her intervention to save Mordechai’s life.

Rembrandt thus used light as a tool to help his narrative.

Sadly the painting we see today as Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2) is not only much smaller than the original (see below), but its colours are far weaker. A slightly better impression may be gained from the detail shown below, which gives stronger clues as to the blue areas on Civilis’ crown and regal garments.

Rembrandt shows us a lofty king of his people, dressed in finery, his lost eye witness to his bravery and experience. His tribal chiefs join their swords and hands with his sword, in an oath to which they will be bound unto death, if necessary. The light, apparently from a source on the table and carefully hidden behind the foreground figures, heightens the moment and its meaning.

There was little scope for the use of facial expression here, which has (with a single exception at the far right) to be earnest. But the body language, swords, and light between them make this a moment of true peripeteia, a turning point for the Batavian nation – well, albeit a small tribe, but who would have thought that this great king was leader of just 35,000?

Marks in History

Life, even the life of Rembrandt’s paintings, is seldom so simple, though.

Rembrandt’s painting was commissioned for what was then the new Amsterdam City Hall, completed in 1655, which is now the Royal Palace. The dozen large spaces intended for paintings were going to be filled by Govert Flinck (1615–1660), who had started but not completed them when he died in 1660.

Rembrandt was commissioned to paint his version for the City Hall in 1661, and sketched what he is believed to have completed in the summer of 1662.

The painting which we see today is but a small central rectangle within the original. The whole painting was hung in place for a while, but it appears that it fell into disfavour. It was taken down and returned to Rembrandt. He no longer had sufficient influence to change anyone’s mind in the matter. Meanwhile Jürgen Ovens (1623–1678) completed Flinck’s version of The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis shown below, which was hung instead of Rembrandt’s.

Rembrandt was desperately short of money at this time, and was never paid for the original commission. He therefore cut the painting down to a more saleable size, repainted parts of it, and sold it on. A hundred years later, it had made its way to Sweden, and by 1782 had come into the possession of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. In 1864 it was transferred to the Nationalmuseum, where you can see it today.

The Batavi, or Batavians, became a founding element of the nation which developed in the Netherlands, even though their greatest depiction had been sent away and cut up. As the Dutch East Indies developed and made the Netherlands rich from trade, its capital was named Batavia (now Jakarta). During the French Revolution, the Netherlands itself became the Batavian Republic (1795-1806). But the greatest painting of Civilis and the original Batavian chiefs was already in Sweden.

Conclusions

In his later years in particular, Rembrandt’s explorations of light in narrative paintings demonstrated how the artist’s choices can add considerably to the narrative. In Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther he used lighting to develop his characters and their roles; in The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis to transform a renegade tribal chieftain into the founder of a nation.

References

Wikipedia on this painting
Wikipedia on Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther

Bikker J et al. (2014) Rembrandt, the Late Works, Yale UP. ISBN 978 1 8570 9557 9.

Stories – narratives, if you prefer a little more pretence – are so ubiquitous that we are seldom conscious of them. Even when we go to sleep, in our dreams our minds weave often vivid narrative experiences in our inner world.

Until a couple of centuries ago, the ways we had of telling our stories were limited, and had only changed gradually over the millenia. At first, we had oral stories: whatever anyone might claim, undoubtedly one of the main purposes for the development of human language. We then started to illustrate these with paintings, as seen in caves around the world. Next we invented ways of writing our speech down, and recording stories which could be passed on verbatim.

The world’s great religions accumulated first oral then written compilations of stories, describing how the world and humans came about, tracing tribal histories, and those of prophets and God.

Painting developed into fine art, providing the only manmade images that people saw. Our ancestors were able to read the stories in such paintings even though most could not read their own written language. Printing presses made it possible for increasing numbers to have their own images and written stories, and mass media started to flourish.

A couple of hundred years ago, the pace of change increased markedly as a result of technology. First, still photography made it possible for anyone to have an image made of themselves, and to see images of people and events, without the intermediary of a painter. Then came movies and the cinema, radio, television, and most recently of all, computers and electronic games – each spreading more elaborate storytelling to more and more people.

Whether or not the first consumer virtual reality (VR) headsets now being sold by Oculus mark the ‘year of VR’, they are another milestone in our obsession with the story. The games and other narratives which Oculus users will immerse themselves in have finally become almost completely real.

But what is fascinating about all these different means of telling stories is that the new have not replaced the old. We still tell one another stories just as much as our illiterate ancestors did. Far from killing written stories and books, new technologies have enabled them to proliferate. When we go on holiday, we don’t just take a couple of reading books, but Kindles and iPads packed with many titles. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels made their movies a great success, which in turn promoted book sales. JRR Tolkien’s wonderful synthetic myths became far more widely-read once more people had seen the movies.

One reason for the continuing popularity of more traditional means of storytelling is their lack of explicitness, and reliance on the imagination. Many of those who read the book and watch the movie choose to return to the book, because only there can they create their own mental imagery of the story. This was amply demonstrated by Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast on radio, then turned into books, and only latterly – and least successfully – into TV series and then a movie.

VR has the huge disadvantage in that it replaces almost all imagination with explicit sensory input. Those weaving stories for VR systems are going to have to work hard to keep the imagination active, or VR risks turning into nothing more than a passing theme-park experience with the transience of memes. It is encouraging that there is so much research taking place in narrative for computer gaming and VR.

The one narrative medium which remains an endangered species is painting. The popular neglect of narrative painting which developed during the nineteenth century was followed by an orgy of self-destruction, in the hands of over-influential critics and art for the art industry’s sake, during the twentieth century. It brought painting to the brink of total collapse as an art, which thankfully is now being reversed. One reason for my intensive series of articles here about narrative in painting is my belief that, without thriving and healthy narrative genres in painting, few people will enjoy contemporary painting as much as they do the paintings of the past.

We have reached an exciting chapter in the story of narrative. I can’t wait to turn the page.

Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880) was the son of a famous archaeologist, and trained at the Düsseldorf, Munich, and Antwerp academies before becoming a pupil of the now-infamous Thomas Couture in Paris, at the time that the French Impressionists were also learning to paint.

In contrast to the nascent Impressionists, Feuerbach was a painter of history and mythology in true Salon style: highly finished, and with the aura of complete authenticity. But look below the paint surface, and things were a little different.

The Death of Author Pietro Aretino (1854)

The Italian author Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) is probably as obscure now as is Anselm Feuerbach, and he makes a strange character for a narrative painting. In his day, he was a great influence on art and politics, and Titian painted his portrait at least three times. An overt homosexual (or, more accurately, promiscuous bisexual), he quickly brought offence when in Rome by writing and publishing sixteen pornographic sonnets to accompany a series of equally pornographic drawings by Marcantonio Raimondi.

Fleeing to Venice, he there became a very successful blackmailer, as well as developing his sharply satirical writing. As you might expect, his mode of death was as strange as his mode of life: he was said to have died of suffocation “from laughing too much”.

Feuerbach shows the exterior of an Italian villa with a wild party in full swing. In the background, a couple are making love, oblivious of what is taking place in front of them. Aretino appears to have fallen onto his back on the stone flooring, his right hand still gripping the tablecloth and bringing plates, food, and a glass toppling down on him. Next to him on the stone is a stringed musical instrument, and a small dog.

At the left, a man appears to be trying to reach Aretino, but is struggling to do so, perhaps through drunkenness, his left hand clutching the edge of the table. Around that table are three beautiful young women, who appear mildly amused at Aretino’s predicament, or are ignoring him. In the right background a man appears to be passing his empty goblet up to a black servant for refilling.

The painting is a puzzle. Why Feuerbach should have any interest in such an event is a mystery, and why he should portray it in such a curious painting is unclear. As narrative, it begs many questions and answers none.

Medea (1870)

We seem on safer, certainly better-trodden, ground with Medea, from Greek mythology. The sorceress daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, she was part of the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece (and the Argonauts), which has very ancient origins. Inevitably there are different versions, but the basic story is that Medea fell in love with Jason, and – on the condition of their marriage on his return – helped him obtain the Golden Fleece.

The most famously developed account of Medea and Jason is that in Euripides’ play Medea. According to that, Medea had two children by Jason, Mermeros and Pheres. Later Creon, the King of Corinth, offered Jason his daughter Glauce in marriage. When Jason left Medea for Glauce, Medea avenged his betrayal by killing their two children.

An alternative and happier ending is that Jason and Medea fled to Corinth, where they had five sons and a daughter.

When Feuerbach decided to paint Medea, he may have already seen Moreau’s Jason (1865), which I discussed here. He decided to paint something approaching its antithesis.

For Feuerbach, Medea is the mother of their two young children, watching as Jason and his Argonauts push their boat back into the surf to go in quest of the Golden Fleece. Presumably the woman in black is mother or mother-in-law. Medea appears almost an archetypal mother, a Madonna and infant plus one, not even looking at the departing boat. She is no sorceress, and the merest suggestion that she could ever kill those children in vengeance seems absurd.

So this too is a puzzle.

The Battle of the Amazons (1873)

The Attic War, again in Greek mythology, was a conflict between the famous female warrior Amazons and the Athenians of Greece. The dead queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, had a sister, Antiope, who was abducted by Theseus, leader of the Athenians, during the ninth labour of Heracles/Hercules. The Amazons not only wanted to rescue Antiope, but to bring back the Hippolyte Belt, which Heracles had won in that ninth labour.

Despite their reputation as fierce warriors, the Amazons were annihilated in battle, as the Athenians spooked their horses, who went wild, throwing their riders and then killing them. This had previously been depicted in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the earliest of which, The Battle of the Amazons (c 1600), is below.

Feuerbach’s second version of his painting appears to follow Rubens more closely.

Remarkably, amid the complete chaos, there are no signs of carnage: neither Rubens nor Feuerbach show any blood (apart from the occasional sliver on a dagger) amid the acres of bare female flesh.

Plato’s Symposium

Although known as Plato’s Symposium, after the philosophical drinking party described by Plato in 385-370 BCE, the event is perhaps better described as Agathon’s party. For Plato set his philosophical debate at a party thrown by Agathon in 416 BCE to celebrate his first victory in a dramatic competition, the Dionysia. The debate was used by Plato to expound various theories of (predominantly male homosexual) love.

The participants include Phaedrus (an aristocrat who followed Socrates), Pausanias (a legal expert), Eryximachus (a physician), Aristophanes (the famous comic playwright), Agathon (a tragic poet and the host), Socrates (the philosopher, and teacher of Plato), and Alcibiades (a statesman and orator).

Feuerbach may have seen a print made from Pietro Testa’s (1611–1650) painting The Symposium of Plato (before 1648).

Testa shows the seven participants engaged in debate around a table, a naked youth nearby, and a courtyard with statuary behind.

Feuerbach initially made a watercolour sketch of his intended painting in 1865-6, and completed his first version of Plato’s Symposium in oils in 1869. I am indebted to Professor J H Lesher for decoding the identity of the figures.

Entering from the left down the short flight of steps, almost naked, is the drunken statesman and orator Alcibiades, shown as a homoerotically-charged young man. His right arm is cast around a partially unclad female companion, and he brings with him a group of revellers, including another partially undressed woman with a tambourine. Alcibiades himself is framed by a pair of putti, the nearer with a wreath, the other with a double flute.

Standing in the centre, Agathon welcomes the group, and wears the laurel crown of his victory. Around him, to the right, are the other figures of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Aristodemus, and Socrates, perhaps Plato too. With very few clues as to which might be which, Feuerbach does not seem to want us to identify them individually. Behind Agathon there is an opening to a courtyard garden, not dissimlar to that of Testa, but without the statuary.

Detailed analyses of the paintings shown on the walls, and comparisons with Plato’s text, reveal that Feuerbach did not attempt to conform to the text, but did try to create an image which appeared convincing. So we have what looks like a careful representation of Plato’s Symposium, but which is actually not. Although it may share some narrative, Feuerbach has other intentions, which remain unclear.

This first version of what Feuerbach considered his masterwork was not well received. He therefore developed a second version (third if you count the watercolour sketch of 1865-6), which was completed in 1874.

Feuerbach’s second Plato’s Symposium (1871-4) has undergone a pictorial transformation, but consists of the same figures in essentially the same locations and relations. Other than Alcibiades and his group and Agathon, there are as few clues as to the identities of the other figures. The walls are now decorated differently, and the distant garden has changed too. But far from clarifying his narrative intent, it remains locked in the artist’s mind.

Conclusions

Feuerbach’s narrative paintings are even more puzzling than those of Moreau, where at least we know that all we have to do is to decode their symbols and read those. Feuerbach provides us with paintings which, at first sight, depict well-known narratives. But look more carefully and each has problems in the reading. Perhaps that was his point.

References

Wikipedia on Feuerbach
Wikipedia on Plato’s Symposium
Wikipedia on Pietro Aretino

Lesher, JH (2008) “Feuerbach’s Das Gastmahl des Platon and Plato’s Symposium” in P. Castillo, S. Knippschild, M. G. Morcillo, and C. Herreros, eds., International Conference: Imagines: The reception of antiquity in performing and visual arts (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 2008), 479–490. Available here.

Armed with Professor Goswamy’s wonderful new book, I thought it might be useful to take a brief look at a small selection of narrative paintings from the Indian sub-continent. In doing so, I acknowledge his guidance in reading those which he covers in his book.

The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza (c 1567-72)

The Hamzanama is an epic of the legendary (and almost entirely fictitious) exploits of Amir Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the finest versions of the Hamzanama is that made for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in about 1562, which Goswamy describes as “one of the most exciting, and extensive, manuscripts ever to be painted in India, and one of the key documents of Mughal painting.” (p 149.)

Sadly, as with so many of these manuscripts, the whole has been split up and different folios sold on, dispersing what remains around the globe. Many pages seem to have been lost: of the 1400 paintings believed to have been in the original 14 volumes, the location of only about 100 paintings is known at present.

Goswamy tells us that this painting comes from a few about a young prince, Nur-ud-dahr. One inscription tells of a demon throwing this prince into the sea, from which the Prophet Elias rescued him to an island.

This tale can be further reconstructed. Among the prince’s admirers was an ‘infidel’ girl who was told by a demon that the demon had kidnapped the prince one night, and had thrown him into the sea. The girl reported this to Umar, but the ‘crisis’ Prophet Ilyas (or Elias, or Elijah) had intervened and helped the prince to shore and safety.

The painting, commonly attributed to Mir Sayyid Ali and Miskin, but probably the work of Basawan, according to John Seyller, is exquisite. The Prophet is shown, his head distinctively surrounded by gold flames, walking on the waves and leading the prince to safety, towing him along by his scarf. The prince reaches up for the scarf with his right hand, a tiger-skin wrap around him.

Facial expressions are relatively neutral, although the prince appears to be smiling with relief. Body language is clear, the Prophet leading to the shore with his right hand, and looking back at the prince. The whole of the rest of the painting sets this in turbulent waters, with large fish and an alligator nearby. The safe haven ashore is shown in wonderful and lush detail, with peacocks and the rich foliage of trees.

Ibrahim Adil Shah (c 1590-95)

This painting comes from an album now in Saint Petersburg, and shows “one of the most gifted of the Sultans of the Deccani Kingdoms, Ibrahim Adil Shah.” Although more of a narrative portrait, showing its subject when he was not quite twenty years old, on a hawking expedition, it depicts action.

Ibrahim Adil Shah is shown on horseback, his hawk on his right hand as his horse gallops through a landscape of extraordinary beauty. Goswamy identifies the wildlife as including jackals, pheasants, and saras cranes.

The Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana (c 1765)

The Mahabharata is one of the two major epics of ancient India, and probably originates from the eighth or ninth centuries BCE. The Bhagavata Purana is one of the eighteen Maha (Great) Puranic texts of Hinduism, and most probably dates from the eighth to the tenth century CE. Stories about the Pandava brothers form part of the central theme of the Mahabharata, and appear sporadically in the Bhagavata Purana too.

There was a longstanding rivalry between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, known as the Kurukshetra War, although they were cousins. At one stage, the Pandavas had to leave Hastinapura and move to the city of Varanavartha/Varnavata. The Kauravas had a palace built there of highly inflammable materials, particularly lacquer (Lac), and planned to set fire to it in the night when the brothers were asleep in it.

Fortunately the Pandava brothers were warned to beware of the perils of fire, and dug a tunnel to provide themselves with a means of escape. One very dark and windy night, one of the Pandava brothers decided that he would pre-empt events. He gathered the brothers and their mother, and as they were fleeing through the tunnel, set the palace on fire himself. He did not realise that a woman and her five drunken sons were still in the house, and they perished.

The painting shows the entire palace in flames, those being fanned by the strong wind. Grey spirals of smoke are rising from the building too, and vague details of the structure can be seen in places. The dark starry night sky forms a contrasting background.

The Bhagavata Purana (c 1840)

More central to the later books of the Bhagavata Purana are accounts of the life of Krishna. This episode concerns a great battle which raged between Krishna and the demon-king Naraka. Here, mounted on the sun-bird Garuda, Krishna storms Naraka’s citadel. Eventually Krishna overcomes the demon and beheads him, and is then honoured by the Earth Goddess, mother of the slain Naraka.

This detail from a splendid double-page spread (which is shown complete in Goswamy’s book, p. 264) shows the blue-skinned representation of Krishna mounted on Garuda in several places. This illustrates a narrative technique which is not peculiar to Indian painting, but which died out after the Renaissance in Europe.

The citadel is shown on a circular island, surrounded by a moat and other protection, which forms no barrier to Krishna and Garuda.

The Ramayana of Valmiki (c 1597-1605)

The Ramayana is the other major epic of ancient India, and its earliest manuscripts date from the eleventh century CE, and possibly (most recently discovered) from the sixth century CE. Hanuman is a vanara of the kingdom of Kishkindha. Trisiras is the three-headed son of Tvashta, created by Tvashta to dethrone Indra. Although in other versions, Indra kills Trisiras, here it is Hanuman who cuts the triple heads off.

This painting shows Hanuman, his sword still in his right hand, holding the triple head of Trisiras with his left hand. Attendants are gnawing Trisiras’ arms off.

Shakuntala, from The Mahabharata (late nineteenth century)

Shakuntala was the wife of Dushyanta and mother of Emperor Bharata. Her story appears in the Mahabharata, and has been retold by others and in several plays. As is usual with legends, there are many variants, and I show here two relatively recent oil paintings by Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) which depict events in the story.

This shows Shakuntala’s father, Vishwamitra, refusing to accept her from her mother, Menaka, soon after birth. Although there is good use made of facial expressions, most prominent is the body language in the form of arm and hand gestures (mudrā) which are formalised in dance and the theatre.

This shows the traditional opening episode in the central legend, in which Shakuntala is walking through the forest, when she looks back. King Dushyanta has been travelling through the same forest with his army, and was pursuing a wounded male deer. Shakuntala and Dushyanta see one another and fall in love, and get married.

Raja Ravi Varma follows convention in his use of facial expression, body language, and the pictorial cues and clues.

Urvashi and Pururavas (late nineteenth century)

My final painting, again in oils by Raja Ravi Varma, shows the legend of Urvashi and Pururavas.

Urvashi is an Apsara or nymph, a celestial maiden in Indra’s court, and the most beautiful of all the Apsaras. She became the wife of King Pururavas. They met when Urvashi was returning to heaven after completing an earthly task, and was abducted by a demon. Pururavas saw this, gave chase in his chariot, and freed Urvashi.

Raja Ravi Varma does not use facial expression much, but tells his narrative mainly using body language. My main reason for including this painting here is its relaxed use of perspective: in comparison with a European painting of similar age, it does not conform to a geometrically ‘correct’ perspective projection. Nevertheless, it does not look out of kilter, and does possess depth.

Conclusions

The most difficult question to answer in most of these examples is whether the paintings that we see now were intended to illustrate the text which they accompanied, or were to be read as standalone works. The fact that history has fragmented their original texts to the point where you cannot any longer read them as integrals indicates that – whatever the original intent – they do work well as standalone paintings.

The narrative techniques shown in them are generally in accordance with European paintings. Two significant differences are the use of multiple images of the same people within a single pictorial frame, as shown above, and the more formal language of gesture shared with other Indian arts.

I doubt whether any of the earlier Indian painters had any knowledge of Alberti’s principles for narrative painting, but they appear to have developed their own equivalents. Narrative painting employs a more universal language than written or spoken narrative.

References

Wikipedia on the Hamzanama
Wikipedia on the Bhagavata Purana
Wikipedia on Shakuntala
Wikipedia on Ramayana
English translation of Sacontalá.

Goswamy BN (2016) The Spirit of Indian Painting. Close Encounters with 101 Great Works 1100-1900, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 23950 6.

This is an index of the 9 well-known stories and narratives from post-classical history which are covered in articles about narrative painting on this blog. These are arranged in alphabetical order, for each giving the type of narrative and its origin, links to the paintings featured here, and a ‘lead’ example painting is shown. There are separate illustrated indexes for other sources of narratives, e.g. Biblical.

Aretino, Pietro, death of (Italian history, 1556) Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880), The Death of Author Pietro Aretino (1854)

Chilperic I, murder (French history, 584) Luminais, The Death of Chilperic I (1885)

Clovis II, sons of (énervés of Jumièges) (French legend, 660) Luminais, The Sons of Clovis II (1880) (Rouen)

Gradlon, King, and Saint Guénolé, and Dahut (Breton legend) Luminais, Flight of King Gradlon (1884) (Quimper)

Marat, assassination (French history, 1793) David, Marat Assassinated (1793)

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Execution (French history, 1867) Manet, The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Medusa, The Raft of the (French history, 1816) Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-9)

Ney, Marshall Michel, Death (French history, 1815) Gérôme, The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Papin, Christine and Léa, murders (French crime, 1933; play, Jean Genet, Les Bonnes, 1947) Rego, The Maids (1987)

If ever there was a life described in self-portraits, Rembrandt’s was. You can see the effects of age and his many troubles, his bankruptcy, difficulties with ‘the powers that be’, and the pressures put on Hendrickje Stoffels, his partner in later years. Despite that toll, perhaps because of it, his painting just got better and better.

The one painting from his final years which has had a more mixed reception, but which I think remains one of his most brilliant narrative works, is his Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2). If you were fortunate enough to see it on tour in the exhibition Rembrandt, the Late Works, or in its home at Stockholm’s Nationalmuseum, I hope that you agree.

Narrative

The mighty Roman Empire consisted of a myriad of small tribes scattered throughout its lands. One such tribe was the Batavi, a warlike group of no more than about 35,000 people living in swamp land in the Rhine delta roughly where the southern part of the the Netherlands is today. Its capital was near modern Nijmegen. They had negotiated a good deal in the Empire: rather than pay direct taxes on their lands, like most tribes, they supplied the Roman army with around 5,000 men, many of whom served in the elite regiment of the German Bodyguards.

Their leader at this time was Gaius Julius Civilis, who had a quarter of a century of military service behind him, in the course of which he had lost one eye. In the late 60s CE, the Batavi had become disaffected with Rome. Civilis and his brother were arrested and charged with treason by the emperor Nero, but while Civilis was awaiting trial, Nero was overthrown and then committed suicide. His successor, Galba, acquitted Civilis and allowed him to return to the Batavi, where he was arrested again on the orders of the local Roman governor.

Rome then went through its own crises, with coups and political upheavals, and Batavi military support was suddenly needed. Civilis was released to help the cause, but the disaffection of the Batavi deepened. With civil war raging in the Empire in 69 CE, Civilis led a revolt against the Romans, besieging a camp containing 5,000 Roman legionaries. The following year the Batavi appeared to be gaining the upper hand, but the Romans brought more substantial military forces to bear, and the Batavi made peace again.

This chapter in the history of the Roman Empire is detailed by Tacitus, in The Histories, book 4. Although known in Tacitus’ account as Gaius Julius Civilis, in art history he has become known as Claudius Civilis. The revolt started when Civilis gathered the tribal chiefs and military leaders at “one of the sacred groves”, for a banquet. There he convinced them to join in the rebellion, binding then “with barbarous rites and strange forms of oath”, according to Tacitus.

The Late Rembrandt, Light, and Narrative

Rembrandt had long been well aware of the role of light in bringing intensity to narrative, for example in his Belshazzar’s Feast (c 1635-1638).

But in these late years, he was exploring lighting effects even more deeply, as shown in his Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther (1660).

This – another banquet scene but on a completely different scale – was taken from an Old Testament story from the book of Esther, via the contemporary play Hester by Johannes Serwouters, first performed in 1659. The original narrative revolved around Haman, one of King Ahasuerus’ officials, who proposed to hang Mordechai as a scapegoat for the Jewish nation, as revenge for their pride. In this painting, Haman is shown in the shadows on the left, with King Ahasuerus in the centre, and Esther – Mordechai’s cousin and Ahasuerus’s wife – radiant in her intervention to save Mordechai’s life.

Rembrandt thus used light as a tool to help his narrative.

Sadly the painting we see today as Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661-2) is not only much smaller than the original (see below), but its colours are far weaker. A slightly better impression may be gained from the detail shown below, which gives stronger clues as to the blue areas on Civilis’ crown and regal garments.

Rembrandt shows us a lofty king of his people, dressed in finery, his lost eye witness to his bravery and experience. His tribal chiefs join their swords and hands with his sword, in an oath to which they will be bound unto death, if necessary. The light, apparently from a source on the table and carefully hidden behind the foreground figures, heightens the moment and its meaning.

There was little scope for the use of facial expression here, which has (with a single exception at the far right) to be earnest. But the body language, swords, and light between them make this a moment of true peripeteia, a turning point for the Batavian nation – well, albeit a small tribe, but who would have thought that this great king was leader of just 35,000?

Marks in History

Life, even the life of Rembrandt’s paintings, is seldom so simple, though.

Rembrandt’s painting was commissioned for what was then the new Amsterdam City Hall, completed in 1655, which is now the Royal Palace. The dozen large spaces intended for paintings were going to be filled by Govert Flinck (1615–1660), who had started but not completed them when he died in 1660.

Rembrandt was commissioned to paint his version for the City Hall in 1661, and sketched what he is believed to have completed in the summer of 1662.

The painting which we see today is but a small central rectangle within the original. The whole painting was hung in place for a while, but it appears that it fell into disfavour. It was taken down and returned to Rembrandt. He no longer had sufficient influence to change anyone’s mind in the matter. Meanwhile Jürgen Ovens (1623–1678) completed Flinck’s version of The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis shown below, which was hung instead of Rembrandt’s.

Rembrandt was desperately short of money at this time, and was never paid for the original commission. He therefore cut the painting down to a more saleable size, repainted parts of it, and sold it on. A hundred years later, it had made its way to Sweden, and by 1782 had come into the possession of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. In 1864 it was transferred to the Nationalmuseum, where you can see it today.

The Batavi, or Batavians, became a founding element of the nation which developed in the Netherlands, even though their greatest depiction had been sent away and cut up. As the Dutch East Indies developed and made the Netherlands rich from trade, its capital was named Batavia (now Jakarta). During the French Revolution, the Netherlands itself became the Batavian Republic (1795-1806). But the greatest painting of Civilis and the original Batavian chiefs was already in Sweden.

Conclusions

In his later years in particular, Rembrandt’s explorations of light in narrative paintings demonstrated how the artist’s choices can add considerably to the narrative. In Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther he used lighting to develop his characters and their roles; in The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis to transform a renegade tribal chieftain into the founder of a nation.

References

Wikipedia on this painting
Wikipedia on Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther

Bikker J et al. (2014) Rembrandt, the Late Works, Yale UP. ISBN 978 1 8570 9557 9.

Stories – narratives, if you prefer a little more pretence – are so ubiquitous that we are seldom conscious of them. Even when we go to sleep, in our dreams our minds weave often vivid narrative experiences in our inner world.

Until a couple of centuries ago, the ways we had of telling our stories were limited, and had only changed gradually over the millenia. At first, we had oral stories: whatever anyone might claim, undoubtedly one of the main purposes for the development of human language. We then started to illustrate these with paintings, as seen in caves around the world. Next we invented ways of writing our speech down, and recording stories which could be passed on verbatim.

The world’s great religions accumulated first oral then written compilations of stories, describing how the world and humans came about, tracing tribal histories, and those of prophets and God.

Painting developed into fine art, providing the only manmade images that people saw. Our ancestors were able to read the stories in such paintings even though most could not read their own written language. Printing presses made it possible for increasing numbers to have their own images and written stories, and mass media started to flourish.

A couple of hundred years ago, the pace of change increased markedly as a result of technology. First, still photography made it possible for anyone to have an image made of themselves, and to see images of people and events, without the intermediary of a painter. Then came movies and the cinema, radio, television, and most recently of all, computers and electronic games – each spreading more elaborate storytelling to more and more people.

Whether or not the first consumer virtual reality (VR) headsets now being sold by Oculus mark the ‘year of VR’, they are another milestone in our obsession with the story. The games and other narratives which Oculus users will immerse themselves in have finally become almost completely real.

But what is fascinating about all these different means of telling stories is that the new have not replaced the old. We still tell one another stories just as much as our illiterate ancestors did. Far from killing written stories and books, new technologies have enabled them to proliferate. When we go on holiday, we don’t just take a couple of reading books, but Kindles and iPads packed with many titles. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels made their movies a great success, which in turn promoted book sales. JRR Tolkien’s wonderful synthetic myths became far more widely-read once more people had seen the movies.

One reason for the continuing popularity of more traditional means of storytelling is their lack of explicitness, and reliance on the imagination. Many of those who read the book and watch the movie choose to return to the book, because only there can they create their own mental imagery of the story. This was amply demonstrated by Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast on radio, then turned into books, and only latterly – and least successfully – into TV series and then a movie.

VR has the huge disadvantage in that it replaces almost all imagination with explicit sensory input. Those weaving stories for VR systems are going to have to work hard to keep the imagination active, or VR risks turning into nothing more than a passing theme-park experience with the transience of memes. It is encouraging that there is so much research taking place in narrative for computer gaming and VR.

The one narrative medium which remains an endangered species is painting. The popular neglect of narrative painting which developed during the nineteenth century was followed by an orgy of self-destruction, in the hands of over-influential critics and art for the art industry’s sake, during the twentieth century. It brought painting to the brink of total collapse as an art, which thankfully is now being reversed. One reason for my intensive series of articles here about narrative in painting is my belief that, without thriving and healthy narrative genres in painting, few people will enjoy contemporary painting as much as they do the paintings of the past.

We have reached an exciting chapter in the story of narrative. I can’t wait to turn the page.

Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880) was the son of a famous archaeologist, and trained at the Düsseldorf, Munich, and Antwerp academies before becoming a pupil of the now-infamous Thomas Couture in Paris, at the time that the French Impressionists were also learning to paint.

In contrast to the nascent Impressionists, Feuerbach was a painter of history and mythology in true Salon style: highly finished, and with the aura of complete authenticity. But look below the paint surface, and things were a little different.

The Death of Author Pietro Aretino (1854)

The Italian author Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) is probably as obscure now as is Anselm Feuerbach, and he makes a strange character for a narrative painting. In his day, he was a great influence on art and politics, and Titian painted his portrait at least three times. An overt homosexual (or, more accurately, promiscuous bisexual), he quickly brought offence when in Rome by writing and publishing sixteen pornographic sonnets to accompany a series of equally pornographic drawings by Marcantonio Raimondi.

Fleeing to Venice, he there became a very successful blackmailer, as well as developing his sharply satirical writing. As you might expect, his mode of death was as strange as his mode of life: he was said to have died of suffocation “from laughing too much”.

Feuerbach shows the exterior of an Italian villa with a wild party in full swing. In the background, a couple are making love, oblivious of what is taking place in front of them. Aretino appears to have fallen onto his back on the stone flooring, his right hand still gripping the tablecloth and bringing plates, food, and a glass toppling down on him. Next to him on the stone is a stringed musical instrument, and a small dog.

At the left, a man appears to be trying to reach Aretino, but is struggling to do so, perhaps through drunkenness, his left hand clutching the edge of the table. Around that table are three beautiful young women, who appear mildly amused at Aretino’s predicament, or are ignoring him. In the right background a man appears to be passing his empty goblet up to a black servant for refilling.

The painting is a puzzle. Why Feuerbach should have any interest in such an event is a mystery, and why he should portray it in such a curious painting is unclear. As narrative, it begs many questions and answers none.

Medea (1870)

We seem on safer, certainly better-trodden, ground with Medea, from Greek mythology. The sorceress daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, she was part of the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece (and the Argonauts), which has very ancient origins. Inevitably there are different versions, but the basic story is that Medea fell in love with Jason, and – on the condition of their marriage on his return – helped him obtain the Golden Fleece.

The most famously developed account of Medea and Jason is that in Euripides’ play Medea. According to that, Medea had two children by Jason, Mermeros and Pheres. Later Creon, the King of Corinth, offered Jason his daughter Glauce in marriage. When Jason left Medea for Glauce, Medea avenged his betrayal by killing their two children.

An alternative and happier ending is that Jason and Medea fled to Corinth, where they had five sons and a daughter.

When Feuerbach decided to paint Medea, he may have already seen Moreau’s Jason (1865), which I discussed here. He decided to paint something approaching its antithesis.

For Feuerbach, Medea is the mother of their two young children, watching as Jason and his Argonauts push their boat back into the surf to go in quest of the Golden Fleece. Presumably the woman in black is mother or mother-in-law. Medea appears almost an archetypal mother, a Madonna and infant plus one, not even looking at the departing boat. She is no sorceress, and the merest suggestion that she could ever kill those children in vengeance seems absurd.

So this too is a puzzle.

The Battle of the Amazons (1873)

The Attic War, again in Greek mythology, was a conflict between the famous female warrior Amazons and the Athenians of Greece. The dead queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, had a sister, Antiope, who was abducted by Theseus, leader of the Athenians, during the ninth labour of Heracles/Hercules. The Amazons not only wanted to rescue Antiope, but to bring back the Hippolyte Belt, which Heracles had won in that ninth labour.

Despite their reputation as fierce warriors, the Amazons were annihilated in battle, as the Athenians spooked their horses, who went wild, throwing their riders and then killing them. This had previously been depicted in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the earliest of which, The Battle of the Amazons (c 1600), is below.

Feuerbach’s second version of his painting appears to follow Rubens more closely.

Remarkably, amid the complete chaos, there are no signs of carnage: neither Rubens nor Feuerbach show any blood (apart from the occasional sliver on a dagger) amid the acres of bare female flesh.

Plato’s Symposium

Although known as Plato’s Symposium, after the philosophical drinking party described by Plato in 385-370 BCE, the event is perhaps better described as Agathon’s party. For Plato set his philosophical debate at a party thrown by Agathon in 416 BCE to celebrate his first victory in a dramatic competition, the Dionysia. The debate was used by Plato to expound various theories of (predominantly male homosexual) love.

The participants include Phaedrus (an aristocrat who followed Socrates), Pausanias (a legal expert), Eryximachus (a physician), Aristophanes (the famous comic playwright), Agathon (a tragic poet and the host), Socrates (the philosopher, and teacher of Plato), and Alcibiades (a statesman and orator).

Feuerbach may have seen a print made from Pietro Testa’s (1611–1650) painting The Symposium of Plato (before 1648).

Testa shows the seven participants engaged in debate around a table, a naked youth nearby, and a courtyard with statuary behind.

Feuerbach initially made a watercolour sketch of his intended painting in 1865-6, and completed his first version of Plato’s Symposium in oils in 1869. I am indebted to Professor J H Lesher for decoding the identity of the figures.

Entering from the left down the short flight of steps, almost naked, is the drunken statesman and orator Alcibiades, shown as a homoerotically-charged young man. His right arm is cast around a partially unclad female companion, and he brings with him a group of revellers, including another partially undressed woman with a tambourine. Alcibiades himself is framed by a pair of putti, the nearer with a wreath, the other with a double flute.

Standing in the centre, Agathon welcomes the group, and wears the laurel crown of his victory. Around him, to the right, are the other figures of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Aristodemus, and Socrates, perhaps Plato too. With very few clues as to which might be which, Feuerbach does not seem to want us to identify them individually. Behind Agathon there is an opening to a courtyard garden, not dissimlar to that of Testa, but without the statuary.

Detailed analyses of the paintings shown on the walls, and comparisons with Plato’s text, reveal that Feuerbach did not attempt to conform to the text, but did try to create an image which appeared convincing. So we have what looks like a careful representation of Plato’s Symposium, but which is actually not. Although it may share some narrative, Feuerbach has other intentions, which remain unclear.

This first version of what Feuerbach considered his masterwork was not well received. He therefore developed a second version (third if you count the watercolour sketch of 1865-6), which was completed in 1874.

Feuerbach’s second Plato’s Symposium (1871-4) has undergone a pictorial transformation, but consists of the same figures in essentially the same locations and relations. Other than Alcibiades and his group and Agathon, there are as few clues as to the identities of the other figures. The walls are now decorated differently, and the distant garden has changed too. But far from clarifying his narrative intent, it remains locked in the artist’s mind.

Conclusions

Feuerbach’s narrative paintings are even more puzzling than those of Moreau, where at least we know that all we have to do is to decode their symbols and read those. Feuerbach provides us with paintings which, at first sight, depict well-known narratives. But look more carefully and each has problems in the reading. Perhaps that was his point.

References

Wikipedia on Feuerbach
Wikipedia on Plato’s Symposium
Wikipedia on Pietro Aretino

Lesher, JH (2008) “Feuerbach’s Das Gastmahl des Platon and Plato’s Symposium” in P. Castillo, S. Knippschild, M. G. Morcillo, and C. Herreros, eds., International Conference: Imagines: The reception of antiquity in performing and visual arts (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, 2008), 479–490. Available here.