1800
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Oath of the Seven Chiefs against Thebes is a 1800 by Anne-Louis Girodet, a Romanticism work, depicting Aeneas, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This drawing shows seven warriors reaching into a bowl of blood. Their muscles tense. A storm crackles above. Black lines press hard against the white paper. Girodet got the idea from an ancient Greek play. The warriors swear to take Thebes by force. Their bodies look smooth and perfect. But the lightning feels wild and real. The Cleveland Museum of Art owns this work.
Girodet found inspiration for this drawing in Aeschylus’s Greek tragedy Seven against Thebes. Dramatized with powerful physicality, seven warrior leaders from Argos raise weapons to the war deities Ares and Enyo at the far left as they immerse their hands in the blood of a sacrificed bull, and swear an oath to defeat Thebes. Girodet’s strong black outlines and idealized male nudes are characteristic of Neoclassicism’s calculated restraint. Yet the flash of lightning and the warrior’s impassioned expressions intensify the emotional and psychological content of the scene, anticipating the…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French pronunciation: ; or de Roucy), also known as Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson or simply Girodet (29 January 1767 – 9 December 1824), was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis…
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