Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson
Not currently on view
In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of August 2026
FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG
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 growth of romanticism in European art during the early 1800s.
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