After his divorce, his son the King of Rome. Disaster on the retreat from Moscow, and exile on the island of Saint Helena. The rapid rise of Napoleon III and his military failure against Prussia in 1870.
Prud’hon
Emperor Napoleon I, a Corsican of Italian origin who died on a remote British island in the South Atlantic. Paintings of his early military successes, and the Empress Joséphine before their divorce.
Overview of David’s Neoclassicism, his teacher Guérin, the influence of Constable and Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, his friends, and rival Ingres.
Unfinished paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Bonington, Bazille, Bastien-Lepage, Moreau and others.
His later years brought one of the few paintings of Nemesis, an influence on Géricault’s ‘Raft of the Medusa’, and a portrait of the infant King of Rome.
An unconventional portrait of an Empress, who reclines on a stone bench beneath dark trees. She looks pensive if not slightly wistful, and not Imperial in the least.
If you’re arrogant before the gods, succumbing to Hubris (another deity), then Nemesis is what will come to you.
