Monday, September 28

Ingres - "Apotheosis of Homer"

If you click at the image you will read the names of the masters Ingres has portrayed in this work: "Homer is the central person, with a godlike status he is made immortal (apotheosis) surrounded by the important persons of European culture. Here we have the great men of ancient and modern times in the realms of literature and the arts. Apelles holds the hand of Raphael, Dante is close to Virgil, Plato next to Socrates. Also supporters of the Greek culture are seen such as Peisistratos and also Alexander the Great who admired the work of Homer. Whereas Raphael used mainly portraits of his friends or other personalities of his time Ingres tries to be as realistic as possible using information from sculptures of the persons included in the Apotheosis of Homer. Scholars call this work an academic piece of art, nevertheless Ingress influenced the work amongst other of Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse and also Pablo Picasso. We can consider this work also as “a visualization of knowledge”." read and see more here.