In the late 19th century, painting was centred on Paris. But in 1870-71, the city was all but destroyed after a long siege, in the Franco-Prussian War. The story told in paintings.
narrative
Several pro-Empire paintings, including the story of Cleopatra’s seduction of Caesar, as the Suez Canal was being built. Then his most famous painting of all: Pollice Verso.
In the first few years of his career, he was commissioned to paint a series showing stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. They are simply brilliant.
In 3 years, he swung from conventional to highly novel narrative, covering themes of assassination, cynicism, prostitution, and looking.
His grand spectacle of The Age of Augustus was brave, but less successful than more modest paintings of Russian soldiers, or a comic duel.
Behind his traditional narrative paintings are his views on the Third Republic, the slaughter of the Paris communards in 1871, and the Dreyfus affair.
Vociferous opponent of Impressionism, hugely successful and popular, he taught more than 2,000 pupils. The start of a systematic account of his narrative paintings.
A bloke leans over the back of a seat in a railway carriage, trying to chat up a young woman who is just returning from a funeral. Is this an early Prussian problem picture?
The depiction of Pandora opening her box and unleashing all its ills on the world remained popular, with paintings by Alma-Tadema, Bouguereau, Waterhouse, Rackham, Redon, and others.
This story remained almost unknown and unpainted until it suddenly became popular after 1850. Paintings by Etty, Rossetti, Cabanel and others.
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