The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Pictures of the Month | February 2010

Picture of the Month
February 2010

Paola and Francesca [1814/20]
by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
(1780-1867)

In the month of Valentine’s Day, the Barber Institute is celebrating the day of lovers with this scene of Paolo and Francesca by French artist Ingres. However, this is a love scene with a difference.

The story comes from Dante’s Inferno (Canto V). The beautiful Francesca di Rimini had been forced to marry the ugly and deformed Gianciotto Malatesta in order to secure peace between rival families. However, her father was informed that if she saw Gianciotto before the wedding she would never go through with it. Instead, his younger brother Paolo was sent to serve as a proxy groom at the ceremony. Paolo was the opposite of his brother, handsome, pleasing and very courteous, and Francesca fell in love the moment she saw him. She was unaware of the deception until the morning after her wedding day, when she saw Gianciotto getting up. Despite being furious at being deceived in such a way, Francesca still loved Paolo. One day they were reading an account of the illicit love of Sir Lancelot for Queen Guinevere. Believing they were alone, Paolo moved to kiss Francesca, at which moment her enraged husband, who had been hiding behind a curtain, emerged to slay his adulterous wife and brother, killing them both with a single stroke of his sword. The lovers were doomed to spend eternity in the second circle of hell, for those overcome by lust.

Here Ingres contracts the story to a split second, which dramatically combines the critical elements of the tale: the burgeoning love between Paolo and Francesca and their imminent demise at the hands of Gianciotto. We see Paolo kissing Francesca, the book of Arthurian legends about to drop from her hands, and she coyly twists her head away. Gianciotto, seeing this from his hiding place, grips the hilt of his sword, his face partially covered by this action and his leg bent ready to step into the scene and kill the unfaithful pair.

Despite this, the painting is curiously frozen and static: the book will never fall; the sword will never be drawn; the lovers will not die. Ingres took inspiration for his 13th-century Italian theme in the archaisms of early Italian paintings, using elements such as their centralised, boxed space and the brilliance of their local colours. However, in other ways the picture is very much of its time, with Paolo’s surging movement towards Francesca, and her easy blush and sudden limpness, suggesting a more contemporary feel. With Gianciotto relegated to the far right of the scene, the feeling of impending danger is also reduced, although not removed completely, and the beautiful young lovers are the main focus of our attention. The result is an enthralling work, which serves both as a reminder of the power of love and lust and as a warning about the dangers of adultery.

Ingres’s Paolo and Francesca is currently on display in the Blue Gallery. It will be the focus of a free Lunchtime Gallery Talk on Thursday, 11 February at 1.30 pm.

Laura Pitcher, Acting Curatorial Assistant

What is your favourite work of art in the Barber Institute galleries? Drop us a line at info@barber.org.uk and let us know, and we could feature your choice in a future Picture of the Month.

The Collections

Pictures of the Month | February 2010