Artikel
Songs of Sorrow: Bardic Women in Girodet, Ossian, and Staël
Verfasst von:
Cuillé, Tili Boon
info
in:
Eighteenth century studies
Baltimore:
2019
,
159-165 S.
Weitere Informationen
| Einrichtung: | Ariadne | Wien |
|---|---|
| Verfasst von: | Cuillé, Tili Boon info |
| In: | Eighteenth century studies |
| Jahr: | 2019 |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Beschreibung: | |
| As we look at Anne-Louis Girodet's Apothéose des héros français morts pour la patrie pendant la guerre de la liberté displayed in the Salon of 1802, commissioned by Napoleon for Malmaison, and inspired by the epics attributed to his favorite poet Ossian, our eye is drawn toward the Scots bard and the French general at the canvas's center (Figure 1). The dove of peace betwixt Odin's eagle and the French cockerel above and the vessels raised in a toast below intensify our focus. We are also vividly aware of the contrast between the Romantic style of Fingal's troops on the left and the Neoclassical style of Napoleon's on the right.1 If we wrest our eyes from the vertical line that divides the painting, however, they are drawn to the winged victory flying down from above and the myriads of maidens surging up from below. In his gloss of the painting on the occasion of its return to Malmaison after a century's sojourn in Germany, Jean Bourguignon considers these maidens evocative of the Valkyries, on the one hand, and mythological painting, on the other.2 We may, accordingly, be inclined to view them as nereids or muses. Yet they also caught the eye of Girodet's pupil Hyacinthe Louis Aubry-Lecomte, for they are featured in a disproportionate number of the lithographs in his Collection de têtes d'étude of 1822, where he identifies them by name. What becomes apparent in these studies is that the maidens bear instruments (Figures 2–3). | |
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