''Ovid among the Scythians'' (1859 and 1862) is the title of two oil paintings by

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

artist

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

. The less famous second version was painted to integrate the figures and

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and rectified the problems of scale of the first version, which had an unusual composition and strange scale of the characters, provoking negative

criticism Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''"the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad q ...

, even among Delacroix's admirers such as

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

and Gautier, although artists like

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

were deeply impressed. Delacroix painted this subject first in 1844 as part of the decorations for the

ceiling A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a story above. Ceilings ...

of the Library of the

Palais Bourbon The Palais Bourbon () is the meeting place of the National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French Parliament. It is located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, on the ''Rive Gauche'' of the Seine, across from the Place de la Concor ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, in a painting there titled ''Ovid Chez Les Barbares''. They depict the life of the

Ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

poet

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

when

exiled ''Exiled'' () is a 2006 Hong Kong action drama film produced and directed by Johnnie To, and starring Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Nick Cheung, Josie Ho, Roy Cheung and Lam Suet, with special appearances by Richie Jen and Simon Yam. The action ta ...

by the Emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

to the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

port of Tomis, in what was then part of

Scythia Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. His ...

and is now south east

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, where he spent his last eight years and wrote poems such as ''

Tristia The ''Tristia'' ("Sorrows" or "Lamentations") is a collection of letters written in elegiac couplets by the Augustan poet Ovid during his exile from Rome. Despite five books of his copious bewailing of his fate, the immediate cause of Augustus ...

'' and ''

Epistulae ex Ponto ''Epistulae ex Ponto'' (''Letters from the Black Sea'') is a work of Ovid, in four books. It is a collection of letters describing Ovid's exile in Tomis (modern-day Constanța) written in elegiac couplets and addressed to his wife and friends. The ...

''. The

Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...

were an ancient

Iranian peoples The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separat ...

whose way of life was described by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

in his ''

Histories Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to: * the plural of history * ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus * ''The Histories'', by Timaeus * ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius * ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), ...

'' as "

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

ic" and Ovid himself called them a "wild

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

". However, with its cultured man standing before barbarous people, the 1859 picture show the Scythians treating the poet with sympathy and curiosity, and is a fine treatment of the theme of

civilisation A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of State (polity), a state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and Symbol, symbolic systems of communication beyond natural language, natur ...

confronted with barbarity.Gilles Néret, ''Eugène Delacroix, 1798–1863: the prince of romanticism'' (Taschen, 2000), p.81-82. ,

Henri Loyrette Henri Loyrette (born 31 May 1952 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris) was the chairman of Admical, a French organisation dedicated to corporate philanthropy., and the former director of the Louvre Museum (2001–2013). He became first curator ...

wrote: The first version was exhibited in the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

of 1859, the last in which Delacroix participated. The composition reinterprets ideas that Delacroix had previously used in decorative compositions such as ''

The Massacre at Chios ''The Massacre at Chios'' (french: Scène des massacres de Scio) is the second major oil painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix. The work is more than four meters tall, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on ...

'', ''

Death of Sardanapalus ''The Death of Sardanapalus'' (''La Mort de Sardanapale'') is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadel ...

'' and ''

Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople Entry may refer to: *Entry, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States *Entry (cards), a term used in trick-taking card-games *Entry (economics), a term in connection with markets * ''Entry'' (film), a 2013 Indian Malayalam fil ...

''. At the time of its exhibition, the

with its mountains was "universally" praised, while the

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

in the foreground was thought strange by some. Théophile Gautier, for example, admired the painting, but ironically called the mare ''la femelle du cheval de Troie'' ("the female of the

trojan horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

").

Maxime Du Camp Maxime Du Camp (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French writer and photographer. Biography Born in Paris, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to ...

was the author of the harshest criticism, calling the painting "a spectacle of irremissible decadence" and advising the painter "to return to the literary works that he loves and to the music for which he was certainly born". Baudelaire, in his last Salon criticism, called the painting "one of these amazing works" and saying "Delacroix knows the design and painting", and also wrote a long essay on the life of an exiled poet and also quoting Chateaubriand's epic '' Les Martyrs'' to evoke "the landscape, its solitude, its calm charm".

Zacharie Astruc Zacharie Astruc (23 February 1833 in Angers – 24 May 1907 in Paris) was a French sculptor, painter, poet, and art critic. He was an important figure in the cultural life of France in the second half of the 19th century, and participated ...

, in his first Salon criticism, praised all the details in the picture: Ovid ("what noble elegance!"); the mare ("what color and air around it!"); the dog, which made him think about classical sculpture; the water ("a strange beauty"); and, above all, the landscape. In the catalog, by Delacroix himself, was written: "Some examine him vidwith interest, others go home and offer wild fruit and mare's milk, etc., etc." The wildness and the misunderstood genius were key concepts in

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

and are very well portrayed in these two paintings by Delacroix. The second version, contrary to what one might think, is not an

oil sketch An oil sketch or oil study is an artwork made primarily in oil paint in preparation for a larger, finished work. Originally these were created as preparatory studies or modelli, especially so as to gain approval for the design of a larger commissi ...

but a completed version which develops many elements of the London work. Delacroix painted it with more vivid colors, replaced the barbarian with a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of a ...

on the back by a woman bringing food, and also closely integrated the figures and landscape in a manner that is more in keeping with a historical landscape. It was painted a year before his death, in 1862, most probably for a private collector. It was given to

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York, in honour of Philippe de Montebello, in 2008. According to the art historian

Gary Tinterow Gary Tinterow OAL (born 1953 in Louisville) is an American art historian and curator. A specialist on 19th-century French art, Tinterow is currently Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Career Born in ...

: "This is his late, final statement on a theme that interested him his whole life."Drawing Center Won’t Move to Seaport
(March 14, 2008), by Carol Vogel. I
New York Times
Consulted on January 19, 2010.

References

External links

National Gallery Picture Library
The 1859 version in

National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

official website.
Eugène Delacroix: ''Ovid among the Scythians''
The 1862 version in

official website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ovid Among The Scythians Cultural depictions of Ovid 1859 paintings 1862 paintings Paintings by Eugène Delacroix Collections of the National Gallery, London Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Horses in art Dogs in art