Sunday Night Thoughts

Burial of Atala (répétition of 1808 original), 1813
Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (French, 1767–1824)
Oil on canvas; 81 5/16 x 104 1/2 in. (206.5 x 265.4 cm)
Musée Girodet, Montargis


From the Major show on Girodet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art... The show just closed today.


Dear Class,

I just made some small changes to the format on the blog... I added a title bar for you to use and allowed the blog to show messages on the main page for up to 150 days at a time before archiving them.

Debbie, Karyn's and Kristin's posts are a good model for you to follow on the blog. Everyone will benefit in seeing some images from your travels and your general impressions of what you saw.

I took my mother to the Met in NYC last week and among other shows, spent time at this major focus on the work of Girodet. This canvas was monumental in size, at 7' X 9' and depicts the burial of Atala, a romantic character in a novel published in 1801. Girodet is not well know but the show was impressive! He wad a student and protege of David but unlike his mentor, who was almost rigid in his classicism, Girodet foreshadowed romanticism and flights of spirit. His use of light and his consummate painting skills really impressed me!

From the Getty Museum.... ""Whosoever had not known that this young maiden had once enjoyed the light of day would have taken her for a statue of virginity asleep," wrote François René Chateaubriand of Atala in his popular Romantic novel of 1801. Taking inspiration from such poetic lines, the artist, painting in a style similar to Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson, let the rays of the moon play upon Atala and cast over the whole a dreamlike, mystical, magic light, establishing a decidedly Romantic mood. In this scene, Atala's beloved American Indian lover--looking like a Neoclassical version of a Roman hero--and a missionary lay her to rest after she has committed suicide rather than break the vow of virginity she made to her dying mother."