File:Herculanum et Pompéi, recueil général des peintures, bronzes, mosaïques, etc., découverts jusqu'à ce jour, et reproduits d'apreès Le antichita di Ercolano, Il Museo borbonico, et tous les ouvrages (14596499600).jpg

English: Drawing of a Pompeii fresco depicting Medea contemplating the murder of her children playing innocently nearby by Henri Roux Ainé, 1870. Translated related text: "We will not review the various controversial features of Medea's life. Virtuous or guilty, all mythographers and historians present it at least as the type of the most persevering and intense human will. Our painter admits that this powerful will was criminal: he is not one of those who claim that the Corinthians killed the children of Medea before the altar of Acreal Juno, the descendants of the murderers corrupted Euripides so that he would wash them of this stain, and that he put on the stage Mermerus and Pheres, slaughtered by their mother.

"It is a very touching idea, a happy contrast which distracts from the atrocity of the subject, it is finally a softening of the horror by pity, to have represented the two children busy playing with knucklebones under the eyes of their pedagogue, while their furious, insane mother prepares to shed this blood which has passed through her heart, to extinguish this breath of life which was hers. This idea is from a great tragedian or a great painter. Note also that the children, entirely absorbed in their games, do not raise their eyes to their mother. A look, a smile, would even disarm Medea." - Louis Barré, 1870

Identifier: herculanumetpomp18703barr (find matches)
Title: Herculanum et Pompéi, recueil général des peintures, bronzes, mosaïques, etc., découverts jusqu'à ce jour, et reproduits d'apreès Le antichita di Ercolano, Il Museo borbonico, et tous les ouvrages analogues
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Barré, Louis, 1799-1857 Roux, H. (Henri), Sr Bouchet, Adolphe
Subjects: Art, Greco-Roman
Publisher: Paris, Firmin Didot frères, fils et cie
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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M°, B V . V PEINTURES //V? 7&6 10 3.
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DEUXIÈME SÉRIE. 25 brisure du poignet droit de celle-ci, et dans lexiguïté dece monstre qui ravagea toute la contrée et tint tête à unearmée de chasseurs, de héros. On a trouvé cette fresquedans une fort belle maison située à lextrémité de la ruede Mercure, vers les murailles de Pompéi; mais cettepeinture y formait, avec son pendant qui représenteMercure et la Fortune, la décoration dune salle dentréeassez mesquine. Cétait donc un ouvrage de rebut; etnous navons pas été fâché de trouver loccasion defaire connaître ce genre de peinture des anciens, afinquon le compare à ce que sont aujourdhui les travauxdu même ordre. En pareil cas, on na point chez nousdincorrections spéciales à blâmer : toutes les fautes dedétails se perdent dans cet épouvantable chaos quonappelle lensemble. PLANCHE 103. Nous ne passerons point en revue les différents traitssi controversés de la vie de Médée. Vertueuse ou cou-pable, tous les mythographes et les historiens la pré-se

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