Saturday, March 5, 2011

Jean-Germain Drouais (1763-88) : Philoctète dans l'île de Lemnos 1784.

Jean-Germain Drouais (1763-88) : (néoclassique) Grand Prix de Rome 1784.
Philoctète dans l'île de Lemnos
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3 comments:

  1. Divine TheatreMarch 5, 2011 at 8:32 AM

    I wonder what the story is here? Do you know, Andrew?

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  2. andrew1860March 5, 2011 at 3:38 PM

    Hi Divine Theatre, This is Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos from Greek mythology,. There are at least four separate tales about what happened to strand Philoctetes on his journey to Troy, but all indicate that he received a wound on his foot that festered and had a terrible smell. The bow and arrows of Heracles are in the painting. Philoctetes was among those chosen to hide inside the Trojan Horse, and during the sack of the city he killed many famed Trojans.

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  3. Greg BirdAugust 20, 2013 at 8:38 PM

    Drouais is an example of the crisis that was afflicting French history painting (ie painting of classical or mythological themes) in the late eighteenth century. He rebelled against the regime of the French Academy in training young artists. This is one instance of a "do nothing" painting, which shows a scene rather than an action. Drouais's most significant work though was "Marius at Minturnae", where a barbarian intends to kill the general Marius, but doesn't.

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