This rich overview of masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts—the original school of fine arts in Paris and a repository for work by Europe’s most renowned artists since the seventeenth century—will include approximately 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper dating from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The focus will be on epic themes such as courage, sacrifice, and death, as well as the ways that changing political and philosophical systems affected the choice and execution of these subjects. Among the featured works will be paintings by Jacques Louis David, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Anne-Louis Girodet, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres; sculpture by Antoine Louis Barye, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Jean-Antoine Houdon, and Francois Rude; drawings by François Boucher, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin, Titian, and Jean Antoine Watteau; and prints by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn.

The epic deeds of gods and heroes, enshrined in the Bible and the works of Homer, were the primary narratives from which both aspiring and established academicians drew their inspiration.  Their ideology was rooted in the study of the idealized human form as envisioned in classical art. At the École, learning how to construct persuasive and powerful paintings from carefully delineated anatomy, expressive faces, and convincing architectural and landscape settings was understood by aspiring artists to be the route to success and recognition.

Gods and Heroes will offer unique insight into the development of an aesthetic ideology that fostered some of western art’s most magnificent achievements.  Among the  masterworks included will be Fragonard’s Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Idols; Joseph-Marie Vien’s David Resigns himself to the will of the Lord, who struck his kingdom of the plague (1743); Jacques-Louis David’s Erasistratus Discovers the Cause of Antiochus’s Disease (1774); and Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres’s Achilles Receiving the Ambassadors of Agamemnon (1801).

The fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will include a major essay by Guest Curator Emmanuel Schwartz, conservateur en chef du patrimoine at the École des Beaux-arts, as well as several other major contributions.

Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris will travel to at four venues.

*This is when the tour is expected to begin. The exact date will depend upon the needs of the participating institutions.

For more information, contact Interim Senior Curator Lisa Small at 212.988.7700 ext. 225 or lsmall@afaweb.org. You may also contact Temporary Curatorial Assistant Anjuli Lebowitz at 212.988.7700 ext. 216 or alebowitz@afaweb.org.