拍品专文
The present work is one of four studies that Delacroix painted for the third pendentive of the première couple in the North end of the Deputies' Library of the Palais Bourbon. Delacroix had begun work on the twenty-two ceiling paintings in 1837 and did not finish the project until ten years later with the help of two assistants. On January 31, 1848, Delacroix described the subject in these words: "Hesiode endormi. La Muse, suspendue sur ses levres, et sur son front, lui inspire des chants divins" (quoted in L. Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix, Oxford, 1989, vol. V, p. 76). The scene was based on Hesiod's Theogony, lines 29-35: the muses of Mount Olympus addressed the poet and "...gave me a rod, a shoot of sturdy olive, a marvelous thing and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things that were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternallym but ever to sing of themselves both first and last (quoted in ibid., p. 76).
The commission was Delacroix's first experience in painting large-scale public murals, and represented a great challenge to the artist. The ceiling of the Deputies' Library was neither flat nor conventionally vaulted. It measured 42 meters by 10 meters and consisted of five cupolas in a row with a half-dome at each end (fig. 1). It was Delacroix's task to organize this architectural structure into a pictorially unified space, and there was no precedent to which he could turn for guidance. Moreover, the subjects of his mural had to be appropriate for a library setting. Delacroix settled on the subjects of Science, History and Philosophy, Legislation and Eloquence, and Theology and Poetry.
Hesiode et la Muse was one of several parts of the ceiling dedicated to poetry, and it was next to the scene of Ovid. The composition of Hesiode et la Muse was executed as a counterpart to the scene of the Education of Achilles; the two scenes were designed to lead the viewer's eye to the half-dome picture of Attila at one end of the ceiling. In Hesiode et la Muse, the Muse hovers lightly above Hesiode, her ephemeral quality emphasized by the pale color of her dress which contrasts with the more earthly shade of Hesiode's robe. She soars above him, her feet reaching towards the heavens, while his remain solidly planted on the ground. Delacroix follows the iconography of the story with only one deviation, depicting laurel in place of the olive branch.
(fig. 1) Deputies' Library, Palais Bourbon
The commission was Delacroix's first experience in painting large-scale public murals, and represented a great challenge to the artist. The ceiling of the Deputies' Library was neither flat nor conventionally vaulted. It measured 42 meters by 10 meters and consisted of five cupolas in a row with a half-dome at each end (fig. 1). It was Delacroix's task to organize this architectural structure into a pictorially unified space, and there was no precedent to which he could turn for guidance. Moreover, the subjects of his mural had to be appropriate for a library setting. Delacroix settled on the subjects of Science, History and Philosophy, Legislation and Eloquence, and Theology and Poetry.
Hesiode et la Muse was one of several parts of the ceiling dedicated to poetry, and it was next to the scene of Ovid. The composition of Hesiode et la Muse was executed as a counterpart to the scene of the Education of Achilles; the two scenes were designed to lead the viewer's eye to the half-dome picture of Attila at one end of the ceiling. In Hesiode et la Muse, the Muse hovers lightly above Hesiode, her ephemeral quality emphasized by the pale color of her dress which contrasts with the more earthly shade of Hesiode's robe. She soars above him, her feet reaching towards the heavens, while his remain solidly planted on the ground. Delacroix follows the iconography of the story with only one deviation, depicting laurel in place of the olive branch.
(fig. 1) Deputies' Library, Palais Bourbon