Hero and Leander, by Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1814)

We see here a very different type of picture by Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1783-1859), Hero and Leander, painted in 1814.

This is a Greek myth telling of the love between Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite that lived in a tower in Sestos beside the Hellespont (Dardanelles, today), and Leander, a young man from Abydos on the opposite side of the strait.  Leader fell in love with Hero and would swim every night across the Hellespont to be with her.  She would light a lamp at the top of her tower to help lead the way for him.

Aphrodite was the Goddess of Love, but Hero was a virgin.  Leander tells Hero that Aphrodite would not value the supplication of a virgin, and convinces her to let him make love to her.  Their love affair lasts through the summer; but on one stormy night, the waves buffet Leander, who becomes lost; the storm also blows out Hero’s guiding light.  Leander drowns, and when Hero sees his dead body, she throws herself over the tower’s edge, uniting them in death.

This tale has been popular with painters, poets, troubadours and writers for thousands of years.  (One wonders if the seed of Romeo and Juliet can be found within it.)  Of the many literary retellings of the story, perhaps the best known was by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593).  In Marlowe’s version, Leander is spotted during his swim by Neptune, who confuses him with Ganymede and carries him to the bottom of the ocean.  Neptune is clearly besotted by the young man.  Marlowe writes of "[i]magining that Ganymede, displeas'd, [h]ad left the Heavens ... [t]he lusty god embrac'd him, call'd him love ... He watched his arms and, as they opened wide [a]t every stroke, betwixt them would he slide [a]nd steal a kiss, ... And dive into the water, and there pry [u]pon his breast, his thighs, and every limb, ... [a]nd talk of love," while the boy, naive and unaware of Greek love practices, protests, "'You are deceiv'd, I am no woman, I.' Thereat smil'd Neptune.”  When Neptune realizes his mistake, he brings Leander back to the shore, giving him a bracelet that would keep him safe from drowning.

Leander arrives at Hero’s tower.  She answers the door to find the youth nude, and after much love talk, consummate their relationship.  The poem ends with dawn approaching; Marlowe was never able to finish his epic; he would be murdered in a barroom brawl before completion.

Delorme would no doubt have been aware of Marlowe’s text, and it’s possible to see where it informed his painting.  With his delicate curls, beatific smile and shimmering, supple body, Leander is quite beautiful.  Hero anoints his tresses with perfume (or, perhaps, sweet-smelling oils) taken from the open box beside them, a particular irony, seeing that the youth is doomed to drown.  Take a moment to look at how wonderfully Delorme delineates each of Leander’s fingers (on Hero’s shoulder).  These are not the fingers of a Samson, but, rather, a pretty boy.  And though he looks up at Hero with adoration, he is a little … sappy.

The most splendid component of this picture is the glorious Hero.  Once again Delorme harkens back to Raphael for inspiration of the heroine’s face.  But it is in the depiction of her voluptuous (and, frankly, sexual body) that the quality of the picture rests.  It is no mistake that the centerpiece of the entire painting is Hero’s mons veneris; it lies dead-center in the picture, and Delomre’s use of light draws the eye’s attention directly to it.  It is also the center of the figure, and the playful gestures of both her arms and her legs seem to stem from it.  (Even the application of perfume is code for what is going on, as the couple rejoices next to an open box.)

Delorme’s coyness extends to the background, where he has a makeshift curtain block the background window; he places the lyre at the base of Aphrodite’s statue.  In the symbolism of ancient Greece, Orpheus was able to play the lyre in such a way as to knock down stone walls.

This is a witty, beautifully constructed picture.  Not inexplicably moving, like his Cephalus and Aurora, but accomplished nonetheless.

Cephalas Carried Off by Aurora, by Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1851)

Here is a wonderfully (and unexpectedly) tender painting by an artist we have not covered before, Pierre Claude Francois Delorme (1783-1859).  He is not as well known in the United States as he should be, but his relatively small oeuvre is replete with delicacy and grace.

Delorme was born in Paris and was a student of Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (1767-1824) – who was, himself, a student of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), whom we have covered many times in these pages.   The influence of both Girodet-Trioson and (once-removed) David are readily apparent.  Delorme was, in many ways, an exemplar of the classical style of painting of the Empire period.  He painted a number of significant works, including pictures for the palaces of Versailles, Fontainbleau, Neurilly and Compiegne, as well as various Parisian churches.

Like his masters, Delorme produced pictures featuring monumentally sculpted figures in a posed, almost tableaux-like composition.  His interests were historical and mythological, like others of the period, and he sought to tell universal truths about people through evocations of a more sublime ideal.

However, Delorme parts company with his contemporaries because he also carries within his worldview an earlier, Renaissance ideal.  Following his apprenticeship, Delorme spent many years in Italy, where he became enamored of the works of such later Renaissance figures as Raphael and Michelangelo.   The influence of these painters – more human, more emotional, more fluid -- lent his work an added depth; almost as if the Mannerist experiment added a touch of humanity and emotion to what is a technically brilliant, but emotionally cold, school of painting.

The story of Cephalus and Aurora is told in Book Seven of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Cephalus, an Athenian hero, falls in love with Procis, and marries her. Shortly afterwards, while hunting deer, he catches the eye of Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn.  Though a Goddess, Aurora was sexually adventurous and was frequently attracted to young mortal men.  Descending from her mountain home, Aurora carried Cephalus off with her. However, on finding that he remained faithful to Procris, she allowed him to return home, privately swearing vengeance. She caused a spirit of jealousy to infect their marriage and this eventually resulted in the accidental death of Procris who suffered a wound inflicted by Cephalus with his enchanted hunting spear. 

For a story with such a tragic ending, this is an exceptionally sweet and affecting picture.

Let’s start with Aurora.  The debt to Raphael is particularly strong in this picture, as is evidenced by the serene beauty of Aurora, and the delicate pansexuality of the putti.  The gossamer quality of her hair, along with the placidity of her gaze, mark Delorme’s Aurora as a Renaissance figure.  Look, too, at her delicately drawn feet, and the diaphanous quality of her dress, which renders her leg visible.  This is draughtsmanship of a high caliber, and the subtlety of the lighting effects are clearly influenced by Late Renaissance (or Mannerist) painting.

Cephalus also looks more like a Renaissance figure than a figure from the French Empire era.  Delorme paints a male figure of heart-breaking beauty.  Look at the graceful lines of the body and the angelically handsome face; it’s impossible to look at Cephalus without a sense of awe at his transformative beauty.

Delorme achieves this with strategic lighting effects:  his strong brow and sensitive line of nose are well lit.  The light then accentuates the wide, capacious breast, lilting down to the stomach and growing darker, darker around the powerful legs.  The artist also hints at the width of his body by the hot, white light of the right knee, popping up behind the shadowed foreleg.

But the real heart of the picture is Aurora’s hand, placed lovingly on the breast of Cephalus.  This component, if nothing else in the picture, is the work of pure genius.  That one touch denotes romantic love, sexual passion, possession, gentleness and protection.  The impression transcends the emotional and moves into the range of the elemental.

Artist Leon Kossoff (born 1926), would often look at the paintings of great masters, sketching his own conceptions of the art before him.  He would often sit before a painting of Cephalus and Aurora (though, the one he gazed at compulsively was by Poussin).  One day, he had a transformative experience before the painting, which he remembered thusly: It seemed as though I was experiencing the work for the first time.  I suppose there is a difference between looking and experiencing.  Paintings of this quality, in which the subject is endlessly glowing with luminosity, can, in an unexpected moment, surprise the viewer, revealing unexplored areas of self.

That is exactly how I react to Delomre’s depiction.  That glowing quality of luminosity completely takes me by surprise, and I feel as if I’m keying into some extraordinarily powerful emotional undercurrent.