Status Updates From David to Delacroix: The Ris...

myth circa 1800 in France was considered a serious mode of knowledge about self and society. It could be used as a window to help shed light on and understand modern concerns. It was not a compendium of fanciful stories of no relevance to contemporary life but instead a repository of deep psychological meanings and truths of immense heuristic value.

"a major goal of many artists of the period from David to Delacroix was to bring the imaginary figures of the mythic past into psychological proximity to their audience and, at the same time, to capture the enchantment of the magical, mysterious world of the mythic imagination"

"Delacroix’s admiration for David is well known, receiving eloquent asseveration when he described David as 'the father of the entire modern school in painting and sculpture.'"

"Psychology and physiology go hand in hand. Delacroix was heir to a long legacy of using the transparent window of myth to reveal important truths about modern mores and the human condition."

"Why would narratives involving the dissolution of sexual boundaries
through the story of a sexually inexperienced youth and the sexually
aggressive female who pounces be so popular during this period?
The physiology of unbridled female sexuality was the subject of medical
discourse of the period and is an extension of prevailing eighteenth century fascination with male/female sexuality and difference"

"Why would narratives involving the dissolution of sexual boundaries
through the story of a sexually inexperienced youth and the sexually
aggressive female who pounces be so popular during this period?
The physiology of unbridled female sexuality was the subject of medical
discourse of the period and is an extension of prevailing eighteenth century fascination with male/female sexuality and difference"

"Why would narratives involving the dissolution of sexual boundaries
through the story of a sexually inexperienced youth and the sexually
aggressive female who pounces be so popular during this period?
The physiology of unbridled female sexuality was the subject of medical
discourse of the period and is an extension of prevailing eighteenth century fascination with male/female sexuality and difference"

"The story of Lange’s greed and adulterous affairs, which directly inform
the painting. Lange asked Girodet to take it down. Infuriated, he [Girodet] cut the canvas into pieces, sent them to her, and spent the next fifteen days exacting his revenge with his mythologized portrait"

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"Myth reveals the truths of nature. In Endymion and in his mythopoeic work in general, Girodet seeks to reveal psychological and natural profundities. And Eros often serves an important function in this revealing."

"One of the most sensual passages in the painting is Paris’s abdomen, with soft flesh covering muscles that undulate downward. Most remarkable are the graceful yet ruddy feet of Paris and Helen, depicted with breathtaking naturalism of detail, including the toenails."

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"With the advent of Romanticism, artists gravitated toward mythic narratives that emphasized the philosophical and psychological rather than the civically programmatic or the celebratory, as seen in the earlier decades of the eighteenth century. Some of the greatest artists favored sadness and psychological suffering over happiness and joy."

"mythology is no longer seen as “something feigned and invented in order
to instruct and entertain” but rather revelatory of a kind of truth—in fact,
a truth equal in value to historical truth, and one that can also reveal the
nature of ancient religions"

"During the 1790s, in fact, at the very time when religious subject matter becomes untenable due to Revolutionary and Republican ideologies, myth takes on a new momentum, particularly myths related to eros and desire"