15 Works, May 2nd. is artist Charles Gleyre's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #121

Gleyre, Charles 1806–1874.

Pentheus, Hunted by the Maenads, c. 1865

Oil on canvas

121.7 × 200.7cm.

Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel

The Bacchae; also known as The Bacchantes is an ancient Greek tragedy.

The tragedy is based on the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, and their punishment by the god Dionysus. The god Dionysus appears at the beginning of the play and proclaims that he has arrived in Thebes to avenge the slander, which has been repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. In response, he intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, and he intends to demonstrate to the king, Pentheus, and to Thebes that he was indeed born a god. At the end of the play, Pentheus is torn apart by the women of Thebes and his mother Agave bears his head on a pike to her father Cadmus. More on this painting

Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (2 May 1806 – 5 May 1874), was a Swiss artist who was a resident in France from an early age. He took over the studio of Paul Delaroche in 1843 and taught a number of younger artists who became prominent, including Henry-Lionel Brioux, George du Maurier, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis-Frederic Schützenberger, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Toulmouche, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Charles Gleyre

ULYSSES AND NAUSICAA

Oil on canvas

61 by 83.5cm., 24 by 33in 

Private collection

Nausicaa is a character in Homer's Odyssey. She is the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. 

In Book Six of the Odyssey, Odysseus is shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Phaeacia. Nausicaä and her handmaidens go to the seashore to wash clothes. Awakened by their games, Odysseus emerges from the forest and begs Nausicaä for aid.

During his stay, Odysseus recounts his adventures to Alcinous and his court. This recounting forms a substantial portion of the Odyssey. He is then generously provided Odysseus with the ships that finally bring him home to Ithaca. More on Odysseus and Nausicaa

Gleyre was born in Chevilly, near Lausanne. His parents died when he was eight or nine years old, and he was brought up by an uncle in Lyon, France, who sent him to the city's industrial school. He began his formal artistic education in Lyon under Bonnefond, before moving to Paris, where he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts under Hersent. He also attended the Academie Suisse and studied watercolour technique in the studio of Richard Parkes Bonington. He then went to Italy, where he became acquainted with Horace Vernet and Louis Léopold Robert.

Charles Gleyre

Hercules and Omphale. c. 1862

Oil on canvas
I have no further description, at this time

Hercules and Omphale. Wishing to expiate the murder of one of his friends, Hercules consulted the oracle of Apollo, who advised him to enter the service of Omphale, Queen of Lydia. Although Hercules was the son of Zeus and was famed for his invincible strength, he submitted to the tasks the queen devised for him to expiate his crime. Omphale fell in love with Hercules for his strength and physical beauty, and the couple married. This tale, found in both Greek and Roman mythology, is told with a number of variations. It proved a great source of inspiration for French and Italian Mannerist painters, as well as the Venetian artists who influenced Lemoyne. François Boucher also painted a version of the same love scene. More on Hercules and Omphale

It was through Vernet's recommendation that he was chosen by the American traveller John Lowell Jr. to accompany him on his journeys round the eastern Mediterranean, recording the scenes and ethnographic subjects they met with. They left Italy in spring 1834 and visited Greece, Turkey and Egypt, where they remained together until November 1835, when Lowell left for India. Gleyre continued his travels around Egypt and Syria, not returning to France until 1838. He returned to Lyons in shattered health, having been attacked with ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eye, in Cairo, and struck down by fever in Lebanon.

Charles Gleyre

Diana leaving the Bath, 19th century

 Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Etude d’un Nubien (Study of a Nubian), between 1835 and 1837

Graphite and oil on paper

28.2 x 22.1 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Charles Gleyre had been in Rome for five years when, in spring 1834, he had the opportunity to live the dream that obsessed all Romantics: to travel to the Orient, to discover the monuments of Ancient Egypt and meet its famously ‘exotic’ people. His Italian career had ground to a halt and he was living precariously, so he leapt at the chance of working as a draughtsman and documentarian for John Lowell Jr., an industrialist from Boston. Their journey took them from Italy to Greece and on to Asia Minor, then finally to Egypt and Sudan. The artist produced over 150 drawings and watercolours, among them many measured archaeological drawings. More on this painting

On his recovery he proceeded to Paris, and, establishing a modest studio in the rue de Université, began carefully to work out the ideas which had been slowly shaping themselves in his mind. Mention is made of two decorative panels Diana leaving the Bath (See above), and a Young Nubian (See above) as almost the first fruits of his genius; but these did not attract public attention until much later, and the painting by which he practically opened his artistic career was the Apocalyptic Vision of St John, sent to the Salon of 1840. This was followed in 1843 by Evening, which received a medal of the second class, and afterwards became widely popular under the title Lost Illusions. It depicts a poet seated on the bank of a river, with his head drooping and a wearied posture, letting his lyre slip from a careless hand, and gazing sadly at a bright company of maidens whose song is slowly dying from his ear as their boat is borne slowly from his sight.

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

La Danse des bacchantes/ The Dance of the Bacchantes, c. 1849

Oil on canvas

Height: 147 cm (57.8 in); Width: 243 cm (95.6 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts 

The Dance of the Bacchantes, the last painting by Gleyre exhibited publicly in Paris (at the Salon of 1849), came as a surprise to enthusiasts of bacchanals, which had been a traditional subject since the days of Titian and Poussin. Bacchus, Silenus and the satyrs are all absent, and the painting is therefore neither mythological nor fabulous, but rather historical and religious. Gleyre paints a mysterious, wild and exclusively female ritual, captured in very precise draughtsmanship and a smooth technique producing what one critic calls the strange effect of a “choreography, which is both noble and unbridled, frenzied and rhythmic”. More on this painting

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

The Departure of the Apostles to Preach the Gospel, c.1845

Oil on canvas

Girodet de Montargis museum

The subject is his invention. We do not find in the Texts any mention of a gathering of the twelve apostles on Golgotha ​​(Matthias having replaced Judas). Raised in a Protestant culture, the artist intends to express here the importance of the apostolic mission.

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Le Retour De L'enfant Prodigue, c. 1873

Oil on canvas

Height: 197 cm (77.5 in); Width: 146 cm (57.4 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus Christ, which he shares it with his disciples, the Pharisees and others.

 

In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his inheritance and after wasting his fortune, becomes destitute. He returns home with the intention of begging his father to be made one of his hired servants, expecting his relationship with his father is likely severed. The father welcomes him back and celebrates his return. The older son refuses to participate. The father reminds the older son that one day he will inherit everything. But, they should still celebrate the return of the younger son because he was lost and is now found. More on the prodigal son

In spite of the success of these first ventures, Gleyre retired from public competition, and spent the rest of his life in quiet devotion to his artistic ideals, neither seeking the easy applause of the crowd, nor turning his art into a means of aggrandizement and wealth. After 1845, when he exhibited the Separation of the Apostles (See above), he contributed nothing to the Salon except the Dance of the Bacchantes in 1849 (See above). Yet he worked steadily and was productive. He had an "infinite capacity of taking pains", and when asked by what method he attained to such marvelous perfection of workmanship, he would reply, "En y pensant toujours". Many years often intervened between the first conception of a piece and its embodiment, and years not infrequently between the first and the final stage of the embodiment itself. A landscape was apparently finished; even his fellow artists would consider it done; Gleyre alone was conscious that he had not "found his sky".

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Dipinto Les Brigands romains/ The Roman Brigands, c. 1831

Oil on canvas

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Le coucher de Sappho/ The Sunset of Sapho, c. 1867

Oil on canvas

Height: 108 cm (42.5 in); Width: 72 cm (28.3 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts  

Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho's poetry was lyric poetry, and she is best known for her poems about love. 

Little is known of Sappho's life. She was from a wealthy family from Lesbos. Ancient sources say that she had three brothers; the names of two of them are mentioned in the Brothers Poem discovered in 2014. She was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC, and may have continued to work until around 570.

Sappho's poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, and she was among the nine lyric poets deemed major by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Today, Sappho's poetry is still considered extraordinary, and her works have continued to influence other writers up until the modern day. Outside of academic circles, she is perhaps best known as a symbol of same-sex desire, particularly between women.  More on Sappho

In the second half of the 19th century, painters found in the representation of everyday life in the Greco-Roman period a way of reconciliation between the neoclassical and romantic heritages. The Neo-Greeks, young people like Jean-Léon Gérôme or Jean-Louis Hamon, through Gleyre's workshop, turn away from heroic deeds in favor of sentimental and anecdotal scenes, treated in large formats. The imagination of this new generation is nourished by the excavations carried out in Pompeii and in Greece, where the exhumation of modest objects provides the necessary accessories for a more intimate evocation of the past. More on this painting

Gleyre became influential as a teacher, taking over the studio of studio of Paul Delaroche – then the leading private teaching atelier in Paris – in 1843. His students included Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Louis Hamon, Auguste Toulmouche, Whistler and several of the Impressionists: Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille. He did not charge his students a fee, although he expected them to contribute towards the rent and the payment of models. They were also given a say in the running of the school.

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Femme turque (Dudo Narikos)/ Turkish woman (Dudo Narikos), c. 1840

Oil on canvas

41 x 33 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

On his return to Paris in 1838 after a lengthy journey in the Mediterranean in the pay of the American John Lowell Jr., Charles Gleyre decided to build his clientele by working in the fashionable Orientalist genre. 

Femme turque is typical of the work Gleyre intended to produce based on his Oriental material. It is a version in oils of a watercolour painted six years earlier in Smyrna, where Gleyre and Lowell had spent part of autumn 1834. More on this painting

Charles Gleyre

Turkish and Arab horsemen

Oil on canvas

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Though he lived in almost complete retirement from public life, he took a keen interest in politics, and was a voracious reader of political journals. For a time, under Louis Philippe, his studio had been the rendezvous of a sort of liberal club. To the last—amid all the disasters that befell his country—he was hopeful of the future, "la raison finira bien par avoir raison". It was while on a visit to the Retrospective Exhibition, opened on behalf of the exiles from Alsace and Lorraine, that he died suddenly on 5 May 1874. He had never married.

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

The Deluge/ The Flood, 1856

Oil and pastel on canvas

99.5 x 197 cm

Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts of Lausanne

Gleyre innovates for this representation of the Flood, a biblical myth which tells the origin of the new humanity. The artist offers a large panoramic landscape, immersed in semi-darkness punctuated by rocks with strange shapes, illuminated in the background by the intense light of a dawn. Here is manifested an attraction for desert expanses, constant in Gleyre since his trip to the East in the 1830s.

The painting shows the new face of the Earth after the waters receded. In the distance, the ark is stopped at the top of Mount Ararat; to open its doors, it awaits the return of the dove which hovers in the foreground. On the right, the body of the serpent wrapped around a trunk symbolizes victory over evil. The center of the composition is occupied by two superb angels, immobilized in flight, and as if stunned to see life resurface in the fresh olive branches springing from a stump. More on this painting

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Evening or Lost Illusions, c. 1843

Oil on canvas

Height: 39.5 cm (15.5 in); Width: 67.5 cm (26.5 in)

The Winterthur Museum of Art

Lost Illusions depicts a vision Gleyre experienced one evening while on the banks of the Nile. It represents a despondent scene and uses softened tones. In the scene, an aging poet watches as a mysterious "bark" drifts away with his youthful illusions. The illusions are represented by maidens playing instruments and a cupid scattering flowers. More on this painting

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Les Romains passant sous le joug/ Romans Passing under the Yoke or La bataille du Léman/ The Battle of Léman, c. 1858

Oil on canvas, 230.5 x 181.4 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Les Romains passant sous le joug refers to the defeat in 107 BC of the Consul Lucius Cassius and his Roman legion by the Helvetians under their chief Divico. The Celts fighting against the invader replace Davel, the solitary hero, and thus a high deed of classical Antiquity, recounted by Julius Caesar in The Gallic Wars, replaces a revolt in modern Swiss history. The work was to become an icon for Switzerland as the young country sought after 1848 to generate unity through myths promoting a sense of national identity. More on this painting

He left unfinished the Earthly Paradise, a picture, which Taine described as "a dream of innocence, of happiness and of beauty—Adam and Eve standing in the sublime and joyous landscape of a paradise enclosed in mountains", a worthy counterpart to the Evening (See above). His other works include Deluge  (See above), which represents two angels speeding above the desolate earth from which the destroying waters have just begun to retire, leaving visible behind them the ruin they have wrought; the Battle of the Lemanus, a piece of elaborate design, crowded but not encumbered with figures, and giving fine expression to the movements of the various bands of combatants and fugitives; the Prodigal Son, in which the artist has ventured to add to the parable the new element of mother's love, greeting the repentant youth with a welcome that shows that the mother's heart thinks less of the repentance than of the return; Ruth and Boaz; Ulysses and Nausicaa; Hercules at the Feet of Omphale; the Young Athenian, or, as it is popularly called, Sappho; Minerva and the Nymphs; Venus and Adonis; Daphnis and Chloë; and Love and the Parcae. He also left a considerable number of drawings and watercolours, and a number of portraits, among which is the sad face of Heinrich Heine, engraved in the Revue des deux mondes for April 1852. In Clement's catalogue of his works there are 683 entries, including sketches and studies. More on Charles Gleyre

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