Thrasea!

[ricardienne]

I finally found a bigger image of the Bronnikov "Death of Thrasea" painting:




I am still unsure which of the two seated women is Arria and which is Fannia, since neither the appearance nor the attitude of either seems more plausible for a wife than for a daughter. I suspect that the standing men in the main group are Helvidius, Rusticus, and Caecilianus (again not clear which is which, though I think the one in the bordered toga must be either Helvidius or Rusticus, and that Helvidius must be either that one or the one in the yellow cloak.

One thing that Bronnikov interestingly picked up is the gender of the Thrasea-group. Tacitus sets this scene amid a "illustrium virorum feminarumque coetus frequens", and the crowd in the background appears to have 4 women and 5 men (of course, 2 of the 4 women are in visible distress (plus Arria and Fannia in the foreground), whereas the men appear to be taking it rather more manfully. But there is that one woman who seems to be part of the otherwise male discussion. One thing that interests me is the role that seems to be given to women in accounts of "the opposition" in this period, and it's nice that it's shown here.

ALSO: An 18th century German play about Thrasea. Practice my Deutsch and be amused by adaptations of Tacitus at the same time!

Comments

[rafi-hythloday.livejournal.com]

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...

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Yes, Thrasea does make a lot more sense in Padua than in Russia! But it makes me wonder what kind of millieu Bronikov was painting for, in which Thrasea made sense as a subject. He seems to have done lots of classical subjects, and lots of classical Christian subjects (lions, amphitheatres, and so forth), and as a sort of political martyr, Thrasea makes sense (though not so much sense, one would think, as Seneca...). One is tempted to wonder about the implications on such a "raid on the salon" scenario under the tsarist regime...

(I sadly can't find any pictures of the Torri fresco -- I guess I'll have to take a trip to Padua one of these days!)

[rafi-hythloday.livejournal.com]

I have some (not very good) pics of the fresco, if you are interested. Not sure whether I can send them, though - I'm not really used to this site...
As for Bronnikov's milieu - yes, it would be interesting to know if there were contemporary resonances. But maybe it just made sense to him! (There again his later compatriot Vassily RUdich was interested in Thrasea for obvious reasons of contemprary politics.)