Now we can see it properly (thanks for finding this larger version!) it is disappointingly apparent that this is a truly dreadful painting. Not the composition so much, but the draughtsmanship. Unless the resolution is still not high enough, it comes out looking terribly crude. This is surprising when we look at the same painter's 'Pythagoreans at sunrise' (on Wikimedia Commons), which is much more carefully done (even if the crescent moon is in an impossible position).
But it seems to me surprising in a way that more painters haven't attempted the scene, which has a lot of dramatic potential. The only other one known to me is, as mentioned previously, Torri's version in Padua, and that was done for reasons which will strike you. But I suppose painters until the 19th c tended to paint from canonical lists of subjects, in which the deaths of Cato and Seneca featured, but not that of Thrasea.
I suspect the gender thing (yes, isn't it interesting) may be the reason why Bronnikov has chosen the 'reading of the death sentence', rather than the suicide itself. A literal reading of Tacitus might lead one to suppose that Arria and Fannia were not present at the death, although I think that is unlikely in fact to be true, or even what Tacitus intended to imply. And obviously, pathos demands that wife and daughter must be present in the depicted scene. (I think achyvi must be right on the identification of the two, by the way - makes more sense for a daughter to be shown in a lower posture than the father).
And I absolutely agree with you about the quaestor...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 09:23 pm (UTC)But it seems to me surprising in a way that more painters haven't attempted the scene, which has a lot of dramatic potential. The only other one known to me is, as mentioned previously, Torri's version in Padua, and that was done for reasons which will strike you. But I suppose painters until the 19th c tended to paint from canonical lists of subjects, in which the deaths of Cato and Seneca featured, but not that of Thrasea.
I suspect the gender thing (yes, isn't it interesting) may be the reason why Bronnikov has chosen the 'reading of the death sentence', rather than the suicide itself. A literal reading of Tacitus might lead one to suppose that Arria and Fannia were not present at the death, although I think that is unlikely in fact to be true, or even what Tacitus intended to imply. And obviously, pathos demands that wife and daughter must be present in the depicted scene. (I think achyvi must be right on the identification of the two, by the way - makes more sense for a daughter to be shown in a lower posture than the father).
And I absolutely agree with you about the quaestor...