William-Adolphe BouguereauFrankrig, 1825–1905Dante and Virgil in Hell
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Dante and Virgil, also known as Dante and Virgil in Hell, is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, from 1850. It is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The painting depicts a scene from Dante's Divine Comedy, which narrates a journey through Hell by Dante and his guide Virgil. In the scene the author and his guide are looking on as two damned souls are entwined in eternal combat. One of the souls is an alchemist and heretic named Capocchio. He is being bitten on the neck by the trickster Gianni Schicchi, who had used fraud to claim another man's inheritance.
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It was Bougereau's third and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to win the coveted Prix de Rome, even though he had submitted a work that he knew would appeal to the judges. He did however find partial success in his efforts later in the year when Shepherds Find Zenobia on the Banks of the Araxes won the consolation second prize of the year. It was displayed at the Salon of 1850 held at the Palais-Royal in Paris.
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Imens i livet hos William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Hele livet1846–1850 · Uddannelse
Beaux-Arts de Paris
1848–1850
The Prix de Rome: three attempts
In April 1848 Bouguereau enters the Prix de Rome competition for the first time, but soon riots break out in Paris and he enrols in the National Guard; he fails to win in 1848 (third place by some accounts, second prize by others) or in 1849. In 1850 his “Zenobia Found on the Banks of the Araxes” wins a joint first prize: it receives fewer votes than Paul Baudry’s work, but because of the revolution of 1848 no one was sent to Italy and a vacancy has arisen at the French Academy in Rome.
1850
The Salon of 1850: attacks on “Dante and Virgil”
The large canvas “Dante and Virgil in Hell” (281 × 225 cm), apparently inspired by Delacroix’s painting of the same subject, is meant to surpass Delacroix in the rendering of passions, and its naturalism to make viewers believe in the cruelty of the forces ruling Hell; at the Salon of 1850 it provokes attacks from critics and the disgust of the public.
1851–1853 · Uddannelse
French Academy in Rome
1851–1854
Through Italy with Curzon: copies of Raphael, Titian, Assisi
At the French Academy in Rome Bouguereau meets G. Boulanger and J. Lenepveu, but becomes closest friends with the landscape painter P. Curzon; together they make many journeys through Italy — Naples, Pompeii, Siena, Perugia, Assisi, Florence, Pisa, Milan, Ravenna. Bouguereau visits almost all the museums and private collections, copies ancient Roman monuments, makes a replica of the complete cycle of frescoes in the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, and copies Raphael’s “Triumph of Galatea” and Titian’s “Triumph of Flora”.
1851–1854
His tastes and the “discovery” of Giotto
In Italy Bouguereau’s tastes take shape: he names Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo as his chief authorities, finds Botticelli too “nervous”, counts Correggio among the geniuses but denies that status to Mantegna, whom he finds “soulless”. In Padua and Assisi he immerses himself in Giotto and discovers in his gestures and faces a link between Proto-Renaissance painting and French gallant painting of the eighteenth century — a “discovery” that will shape his work for the rest of his life and shows in two paintings called “Idyll” (1850 and 1851), reminiscent of Rococo pastorals.
