Charles Gleyre's Penthée and the Creative Imagination
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Charles Gleyre's Penthée and the creative imagination Autor(en): Hauptman, William Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte = Revue suisse d'art et d'archéologie = Rivista svizzera d'arte e d'archeologia = Journal of Swiss archeology and art history Band (Jahr): 43 (1986) Heft 2 PDF erstellt am: 10.10.2021 Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-168781 Nutzungsbedingungen Die ETH-Bibliothek ist Anbieterin der digitalisierten Zeitschriften. Sie besitzt keine Urheberrechte an den Inhalten der Zeitschriften. Die Rechte liegen in der Regel bei den Herausgebern. Die auf der Plattform e-periodica veröffentlichten Dokumente stehen für nicht-kommerzielle Zwecke in Lehre und Forschung sowie für die private Nutzung frei zur Verfügung. Einzelne Dateien oder Ausdrucke aus diesem Angebot können zusammen mit diesen Nutzungsbedingungen und den korrekten Herkunftsbezeichnungen weitergegeben werden. Das Veröffentlichen von Bildern in Print- und Online-Publikationen ist nur mit vorheriger Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber erlaubt. Die systematische Speicherung von Teilen des elektronischen Angebots auf anderen Servern bedarf ebenfalls des schriftlichen Einverständnisses der Rechteinhaber. Haftungsausschluss Alle Angaben erfolgen ohne Gewähr für Vollständigkeit oder Richtigkeit. Es wird keine Haftung übernommen für Schäden durch die Verwendung von Informationen aus diesem Online-Angebot oder durch das Fehlen von Informationen. Dies gilt auch für Inhalte Dritter, die über dieses Angebot zugänglich sind. Ein Dienst der ETH-Bibliothek ETH Zürich, Rämistrasse 101, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz, www.library.ethz.ch http://www.e-periodica.ch Charles Gleyre's Penthée and the Creative Imagination by William Hauptman f&fm W Fig Charles Gleyre, Penthée poursuivi par les Mènads, 1864-5.121x200,7 cm, oil on canvas. Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel (Inv. 249). It has become one of the chief tasks of the historian of generally incorrect or in some cases never fully comprehended. nineteenth century art to reassess schools of art and individual artists who have heretofore been neglected or haphazardly An important example of this unnecessary neglect is the relegated to the second rank. The goal of this career of Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre. Since the large revisionist history, already begun in the 1970's in regard to the centennary exhibition of 1974 in Europe and the first American nature of academic and "official" art1, is to see in a new showing of his works in 19803, it has become clear that perspective the fertile development of nineteenth century Gleyre's painting was much richer in style, content, and art without the prejuidicial view that academic art need imagination than generally accorded. Indeed, Théophile necessarily be linked to bad taste or entirely removed from Gautiefs caricterization of Gleyre in 1845 as a peintre-philosophe4 avant-garde trends. Thus, new studies have come forth describes more aptly the nature of his mature works; recently of not only forgotten painters and sculptors, but for a detailed examination of his paintings reveals an exploration also of such unpreviously studied areas as the art of Eastern of subject and theme that is too often hidden beneath Europe, Scandinavia, Italy, and Switzerland, to name but a the polished surface of a seemingly simple iconographie few examples.2 The results of these investigations indicate structure. This effort on the part of Gleyre to develop an that the previous ideas held by historians in regard to the uncommon iconographie and philosophic element in his values and dimensions of these artists and schools had been œuvre stems already from his first success in the Paris salon 215 in 1843 in the curious imagery of Le Soir, more commonly contain the terrifying and gruesome events surrounding known as Les Illusions perdues. The seemingly facile image Pentheus' actions and subsequent fate. The central element of regret and loss portrayed through the old bard and the in the myth is the power of the Dionysiac cult which receeding boat veils a deeper meaning aligned not only to included in its rites such practices as the tearing apart of autobiographical circumstances, but also to the literary and animals and the devouring of their flesh raw. Pentheus was philosophic trends of the period.5 the son of Agaue and Echion and consequently the inheritor It is difficult to easily classify the artistic flow of Gleyre's of the throne of Thebes. When Dionysius returned to art because of the painter's own fluctuating ideals and his Thebes to establish his cult, Pentheus, in an act of supreme constant search for new expressive forms. He was content mortal arrogance, refused to allow his worship, thus also neither as a Classicist nor as a Romantic and may be said to denying the god's own divinity. Although Pentheus was have attempted to find a mediating path between the two repeatedly warned against his attitude towards the gods by extremes, ajuste-milieu of which his Soir, with its academic the blind soothsayer Tiresias - in Ovid, Pentheus is technique but romantic sentiment, is but an early example. described as "unus contemptor superum," one who despises As Hippolyte Taine noted, Gleyre was an extremely private the gods -, he nevertheless accepted the challenge of his man who rarely verbalized his artistic philosophy even to his royal right against the divine rights of the gods. Yet, despite closest friends.6 There are, in fact, large contradictions in his the ban on the Dionysiac worship, the power of the cult was paintings and artistic credo that often seem to defy so great that it was secretely practiced by the Theban traditional artistic rubrics: while he often relied upon classical or women, including Pentheus' own mother Agaue. Pentheus religious motifs, he also sought out new dimensions in permitted himself to be tempted into seeing the actual rites nationalistic historical works7, produced dozens of sketches performed, but in hiding and disguised as a woman.13 He and esquisses for works that have yet to be identified was later discovered by his mother who in her frenzied state because of their obscure subjects, and even developed mistook him for a wild boar, captured and dismembered projects on grandiose Saint-Simonian themes replete with him, and brought her son's head back to the palace in new political emblems.8 It is perhaps typical of Gleyre's triumph. The moral of the story is that the disobedience of changing values that while he spent more time in the Near the gods is followed by swift punishment. East than most of his contemporaries, he never fully applied the imagery of the Orient in his work despite his own large corpus of pictorial souvenirs which he guarded jealously in The history of the painting his atelier until his death in 1874.9 Yet, a constant strain in Gleyre's paintings, whether drawn from classical, religious, The precise development of Gleyre's painting has never historical, or even invented inconography, is the desire to been completely elucidated. The painter's friend and utilize elements and themes which were not current at the biographer, the critic Charles Clement, provides the basic time-in effect, to develop a pictorial imagery from nontradi- information on the origin of the work14, but from the tional sources in the effort to enrich the subsurface content perspective of his own memories and without thorough of his pictures. In this light, a study of his painting Penthée documentation. Clément noted that Gleyre begun work on the poursuivi par les Ménades (fig. 1), painted in 1864-65, provides subject, in the form of two sketches which would later an essential base for further comprehending the furnish the painter with the essential elements of the originality that marks Gleyre's later works. An examination of iconography, during the first years of their association - that is the painting also underscores certain aspects of Swiss to say, in the late 1840's.15 At this time, Gleyre was well on artistic politics in its commission by the Basel art establishment the way to critical and popular success. After the triumphant and the problems surrounding its loan for an exhibition showing of Le Soir in 1843, he followed with his Séparation of Gleyre's works later. des Apôtres, now in Montargis, in the salon of 1845 where It should be stated at the outset that the iconography of the painter was awarded a coveted first-class medal: most Pentheus is in itself very rare in the pictorial arts. Most of critics hailed the work as a masterpiece of religious genre the examples found are from antique vases and coins, or in and praised particularly the originality of the subject.16 fresco decorations, the most well-known being in the House Gleyre's own interest in classical subject matter was heightened of the Vetii in Pompeii.10 For later art, not one example has in late 1845 with a trip to Northern Italy where he been located before Gleyre's choice of the subject, despite studied the works of the Renaissance and Baroque masters. the fact that the theme had appeared in nineteenth century This provided Gleyre with a renewed impetus for mythological French literature.11 Thus, Gleyre's use of the story as the subjects, producing shortly afterwards such works as his subject of a major painting emphasizes clearly the artist's Cléonis et Cydippe, the iconography of which seems to have desire for innovative practice and freshness in regard to been invented17, the Nymphe Echo, which reveals the thematic selection. influence of Venetian art18, and the gigantic Danse des The literary sources for the story of Pentheus derive Bacchantes, finished only in 1849 and seen briefly in the salon of principally from Euripides and Ovid, both of which were that year - the last work Gleyre would show in the Paris available to Gleyre in translation, the former in a new exhibitions - before it was installed in the Spanish royal edition of 1842.'2 Few stories from classical mythology collection.19 216 r - ¦ü Wv !> •* ;|> É Y r * ¦yn Y ¦i ¦:¦*; S§! :.