DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56731#0140
64. THE EPIC STYLE
Reynolds, the champion of the “great style”, has defined its principles in his Discourses, the
first of which was given in 1769. For him its chief representatives are Raphael and Michelangelo,
and the “three first schools of the world in the epic style” are the Roman, the Florentine and
the Bolognese schools. “The best of the French school, Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have
formed themselves upon these models, and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be
a colony from the Roman school.” The subjects of the great style are the important events of
Greek and Roman fable and history and scriptural themes. In order to represent these subjects
in the monumental style one must “get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities,
and details of every kind”, and the figures must be imbued with intellectual grandeur and bear
the mark of philosophical wisdom or heroic virtue. To Reynolds the Royal Academy was the
medium for stimulating the noble art of history painting on these lines. He followed a long academic
tradition, which had reached him through the Italian Giovanni Pietro Bellori and the French
Academy, and he expressed the views of a wide circle of artists who professed adherence to the
rules of the great style. But these rules were broken as early as 1771 when Benjamin West developed
in his “Death of General Wolfe” a formula for the representation of contemporary events.
1. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92). Death of Dido. 1781. Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.
This picture is a test case for Reynolds’ conception of the epic style. The subject from Virgil’s
Aeneid is one of those “which early education, and the usual course of reading, have made familiar
and interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any
country.” The figure of Dido has been borrowed from a model of the Roman School (see a), but
the expression has been changed from the repose of sleep to the agony of death. The servant’s
grief and despair is expressed in a classical gesture which Reynolds had often seen in Italian works
of art and which he had also copied in one of his sketch-books (see &). The dramatic lighting is
in keeping with the human drama implied in the story.
a. Giulio Romano (or pupil), Sleeping Psyche. Panel in the ceiling of the “Sala di Psiche”, 1528.
Palazzo del Te, Mantua.
b. Reynolds, Detail of a page in one of his Italian sketch-books. Print Room, British Museum.
The figure is copied from a Lamentation by Palma Giovane in II Redentore, Venice:
2. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hercules strangling the snakes. 1786-8. Hermitage, Leningrad.
The picture was commissioned by the Empress of Russia, but it was left to Reynolds to choose
the subject. He hit upon the Hercules story as a symbol of the strength of the young Russian
Empire. He believed that modern history could be interpreted more clearly and permanently by
the ageless terms of classical mythology than by the representation of a particular event, however
important. The story is freely adapted from Pindar’s First Nemean Ode and made to display the
whole scale of human passions: pain and excitement in Alcmena and her attendant, cold horror
changing to “wonder and delight” in Amphitrion whose raised hand with the sword seems almost
petrified, fear in the little Iphicles beside Hercules in the cradle. The picture was at the time
regarded with great admiration, and such a competent judge in matters of the “great style” as
James Barry said about it: “Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of light, the force and vigorous
effect of this picture. It possesses all that we look for, and are accustomed to admire,, in Rembrandt,
united to beautiful forms, and an elevation of mind to which Rembrandt had no pretensions.
The prophetical agitation of Tiresias (left foreground), and Juno enveloped with clouds hanging
over the scene like a black pestilence, can never be too much admired, and are, indeed, truly
sublime.” Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro has here been “ennobled” by reminiscences of Lebrun’s
academic classicism; but in the figure of Hercules, Reynolds reverts to the Roman School (see c).
c. Hercules strangling the snakes. Detail of an engraving by Agostino Veneziano, c. 1525.
5. James Barry (1741-1806). The Grecian Harvest Home or Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus.
One of six monumental pictures painted 1777-83 for the decoration of the Hall of the, Royal
Society of Arts, London.
Barry was perhaps the most uncompromising champion of the great style, and he regarded
himself as the true regenerator of monumental painting. But the only gread opportunity given
to him was this commission by the Royal Society of Arts. The series represents an interpretation
of human culture, and cannot be understood without Barry’s own explanations, printed in 1783.
He wanted “to illustrate one great maxim or moral truth, viz., that the obtaining of happiness as
well individual as public depends upon cultivating the human faculties.”
The Grecian Harvest Home was designed to “point out a state of happiness, simplicity and
fecundity” in which men fulfilled their moral duties better than “in any other stage of our progress.”
It is a free adaptation of two pictures by Poussin, now in London, The Dance of Human Life, in
the Wallace Collection, and the Bacchanalian Dance, in the National Gallery (see d).
d. N. Poussin, Bacchanalian Dance. Painted for Richelieu before 1641. National Gallery, London.
4. Benjamin West (1738-1820). The choice of Hercules between Virtue and Pleasure. 1764.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
West has followed closely the picture by Poussin of the same subject which was then at
Stourhead and was well known through engravings (see 65, a). The grand gesture of Virtue
is taken from Reynolds’ “Garrick between Comedy and Tragedy”, which had been exhibited in
1762 (see 65, 1). Other divergences from Poussin suggest that West was influenced by Shaftesbury’s
“Judgment of Hercules” (1713). It is just this subject which Shaftesbury had thought particularly
fit for exemplifying the rules of the great historical style.
b
Reynolds, the champion of the “great style”, has defined its principles in his Discourses, the
first of which was given in 1769. For him its chief representatives are Raphael and Michelangelo,
and the “three first schools of the world in the epic style” are the Roman, the Florentine and
the Bolognese schools. “The best of the French school, Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have
formed themselves upon these models, and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be
a colony from the Roman school.” The subjects of the great style are the important events of
Greek and Roman fable and history and scriptural themes. In order to represent these subjects
in the monumental style one must “get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities,
and details of every kind”, and the figures must be imbued with intellectual grandeur and bear
the mark of philosophical wisdom or heroic virtue. To Reynolds the Royal Academy was the
medium for stimulating the noble art of history painting on these lines. He followed a long academic
tradition, which had reached him through the Italian Giovanni Pietro Bellori and the French
Academy, and he expressed the views of a wide circle of artists who professed adherence to the
rules of the great style. But these rules were broken as early as 1771 when Benjamin West developed
in his “Death of General Wolfe” a formula for the representation of contemporary events.
1. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92). Death of Dido. 1781. Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.
This picture is a test case for Reynolds’ conception of the epic style. The subject from Virgil’s
Aeneid is one of those “which early education, and the usual course of reading, have made familiar
and interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any
country.” The figure of Dido has been borrowed from a model of the Roman School (see a), but
the expression has been changed from the repose of sleep to the agony of death. The servant’s
grief and despair is expressed in a classical gesture which Reynolds had often seen in Italian works
of art and which he had also copied in one of his sketch-books (see &). The dramatic lighting is
in keeping with the human drama implied in the story.
a. Giulio Romano (or pupil), Sleeping Psyche. Panel in the ceiling of the “Sala di Psiche”, 1528.
Palazzo del Te, Mantua.
b. Reynolds, Detail of a page in one of his Italian sketch-books. Print Room, British Museum.
The figure is copied from a Lamentation by Palma Giovane in II Redentore, Venice:
2. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hercules strangling the snakes. 1786-8. Hermitage, Leningrad.
The picture was commissioned by the Empress of Russia, but it was left to Reynolds to choose
the subject. He hit upon the Hercules story as a symbol of the strength of the young Russian
Empire. He believed that modern history could be interpreted more clearly and permanently by
the ageless terms of classical mythology than by the representation of a particular event, however
important. The story is freely adapted from Pindar’s First Nemean Ode and made to display the
whole scale of human passions: pain and excitement in Alcmena and her attendant, cold horror
changing to “wonder and delight” in Amphitrion whose raised hand with the sword seems almost
petrified, fear in the little Iphicles beside Hercules in the cradle. The picture was at the time
regarded with great admiration, and such a competent judge in matters of the “great style” as
James Barry said about it: “Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of light, the force and vigorous
effect of this picture. It possesses all that we look for, and are accustomed to admire,, in Rembrandt,
united to beautiful forms, and an elevation of mind to which Rembrandt had no pretensions.
The prophetical agitation of Tiresias (left foreground), and Juno enveloped with clouds hanging
over the scene like a black pestilence, can never be too much admired, and are, indeed, truly
sublime.” Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro has here been “ennobled” by reminiscences of Lebrun’s
academic classicism; but in the figure of Hercules, Reynolds reverts to the Roman School (see c).
c. Hercules strangling the snakes. Detail of an engraving by Agostino Veneziano, c. 1525.
5. James Barry (1741-1806). The Grecian Harvest Home or Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus.
One of six monumental pictures painted 1777-83 for the decoration of the Hall of the, Royal
Society of Arts, London.
Barry was perhaps the most uncompromising champion of the great style, and he regarded
himself as the true regenerator of monumental painting. But the only gread opportunity given
to him was this commission by the Royal Society of Arts. The series represents an interpretation
of human culture, and cannot be understood without Barry’s own explanations, printed in 1783.
He wanted “to illustrate one great maxim or moral truth, viz., that the obtaining of happiness as
well individual as public depends upon cultivating the human faculties.”
The Grecian Harvest Home was designed to “point out a state of happiness, simplicity and
fecundity” in which men fulfilled their moral duties better than “in any other stage of our progress.”
It is a free adaptation of two pictures by Poussin, now in London, The Dance of Human Life, in
the Wallace Collection, and the Bacchanalian Dance, in the National Gallery (see d).
d. N. Poussin, Bacchanalian Dance. Painted for Richelieu before 1641. National Gallery, London.
4. Benjamin West (1738-1820). The choice of Hercules between Virtue and Pleasure. 1764.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
West has followed closely the picture by Poussin of the same subject which was then at
Stourhead and was well known through engravings (see 65, a). The grand gesture of Virtue
is taken from Reynolds’ “Garrick between Comedy and Tragedy”, which had been exhibited in
1762 (see 65, 1). Other divergences from Poussin suggest that West was influenced by Shaftesbury’s
“Judgment of Hercules” (1713). It is just this subject which Shaftesbury had thought particularly
fit for exemplifying the rules of the great historical style.
b