David to Delacroix
Subtitle: the rise of romantic mythology
By: Dorothy Johnson
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Bettie Allison Rand lectures in art history
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Chapel Hill [N.C.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
ISBN-13: 9780807834510
Subjects: Romanticism in art; Mythology, Classical, in art; Themes, motives; French Art; Psychology and art
Description: In this illustrated study of intellectual and art history, the author explores the representation of classical myths by renowned French artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, demonstrating the extraordinary influence of the natural sciences and psychology on artistic depiction of myth. Highlighting the work of major painters such as David, Girodet, Gerard, Ingres, and Delacroix and sculptors such as Houdon and Pajou, this book reveals how these artists offered innovative reinterpretations of myth while incorporating contemporaneous and revolutionary discoveries in the disciplines of anatomy, biology, physiology, psychology, and medicine. The interplay among these disciplines, the author argues, led to a re-examination by visual artists of the historical and intellectual structures of myth, its social and psychological dimensions, and its construction as a vital means of understanding the self and the individual's role in society. This confluence is studied here, and each chapter includes examples chosen from the vast number of mythological representations of the period. While focused on mythical subjects, French Romantic artists, the author argues, were creating increasingly modern modes of interpreting and meditating on culture and the human condition.-- From publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-226) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction. David and the rise of romantic mythology; title: Eros and the origins of art : Girodet's mythic meditations; title: From Eros to Thanatos : the mapping of the mythological body; title: Ingres and the enigma; title: Mythological madness and the feminine : from Gros's suicidal Sappho to Delacroix's murderous Medea; title: Conclusion. The continuum of myth.