2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
In bliss and luxury, the legendary king of Assyria and Nineveh, Sardanapal, led an ugly life in his debauchery. This took place in the seventh century BC. e. The Medes, an ancient Indo-European people, besieged its capital for two years. Seeing that he could no longer withstand the siege and perish, the king decided that the enemies should not get anything. How does he want to do it? Very simple. He himself will take the poison, and everything else is ordered to be burned.
The death of Sardanapal is the apotheosis of the pagan perception of the world. The pagan rites of all peoples were approximately the same. The master dies, and wives, concubines, horses, servants, utensils must follow him to the underworld, so that he leads an equally brilliant existence after death.
The story of the painting by Eugene Delacroix
Six years after the publication of the drama "Sardanapalus" by Byron, Eugene Delacroix creates in 1827 a grandiose in size (392 x 496 cm) painting "The Death of Sardanapalus". According to legend, the tyrant was kingNineveh and Assyria. He ruled Babylon (otherwise Bab-El, which in all Semitic languages means "Gate of God") at the request of his brother Ashurbanipal. The episode when the besieged city is about to fall, the romantic Delacroix decided to write.
What is shown on the canvas
An intrepid and ruthless tyrant who, in order not to experience torment, has already decided to take poison, was painted by an artist who had previously traveled around the East and was imbued with a vision of this world. The painter brought to the fore the massacre of naked women, horses, eunuchs. All this action takes place in the palace, in which people, animals, royal clothes, gold and silver should burn. The death of Sardanapal should be remembered for centuries.
There is no place for pity in her. Only the satrap is serene, all other characters are writhing in agony and attempts at resistance. But the funeral pyre is already ready (the brushwood is ready, and it can be seen at the top right). The beloved concubine Mirra will also die in it. She is given a great honor - her ashes will be mixed with the ashes of the ruler. The death of Sardanapal should be so grandiose by his own decision.
Bright and impressive action tends to portray Delacroix. Critics of his time rejected the painting "Death of Sardanapal". Description of the picture is given above. They did not like the cruelty and the rejection of the beautiful, which then triumphed on the canvases of Ingres. Only V. Hugo and later Ch. Baudelaire appreciated him properly.
Composition
All action develops along the illuminated diagonal from top to bottom from left to right. The composition consists ofmany figures.
The main place is occupied by a scarlet bed with a despot lying on it in perfect calmness. He almost touches with his foot the head of an elephant with broken tusks. Next to the right and left are the bodies of the murdered women. The diagonal ends with the preparation for death of a naked concubine, with her muscular slave wringing her arms behind her back. He has already raised the dagger. To the left of this scene, a black slave prepares a stubborn, frightened, beautiful horse with a smart and beautiful muzzle for death.
"Death of Sardanapalus" is furnished with a series of murders. At the bottom right, a man can be seen unsuccessfully pleading with the king for pity. At the top right, a man prefers to hang himself rather than die painfully from burns. Tyrant is absolutely calm. Poison and a bowl for it were already brought to him on a tray in a beautiful jug. He will take it at any moment. The composition lives and moves, giving realism to the whole image: the fear of the slaves, the passivity of the king, the deadly horror emanating from the executioners.
Contrast of light and color
The picture is dominated by the red color of fire and blood. The background is dark, compared to the main scarlet and the light flooding the central diagonal, on which numerous female bodies turn white. Everything is framed with gold scattered precious utensils. The warm coloring of the picture emphasizes the proximity of the fire that threatens everyone. This is how “The Death of Sardanapalus” looks upon closer inspection. An analysis of the picture says that the fading of life is the driving force of the work. The picture wasperceived ambiguously.
The most romantic painting by E. Delacroix "The Death of Sardanapalus" was forgotten for a long time and acquired by the Louvre only in 1921.
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