Seated Figure: Study for “A Vision of Antiquity”

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes French

Not on view

The flattening and simplification of form in this drawing is in keeping with the aesthetic Puvis developed for his classicizing murals in the 1880s. This contemplative female figure appears draped in "A Vision of Antiquity" (1885), one of four murals the artist completed for the staircase of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in his hometown of Lyon. Puvis maintained this figure’s psychological and physical isolation even as he transferred her into the context of the painting, where she is surrounded by others. The same sense of detachment can be seen in another version of the composition,"The Shepherd’s Song" (06.177), an adaptation of the Lyon mural on view in Gallery 800.

Seated Figure: Study for “A Vision of Antiquity”, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, Lyons 1824–1898 Paris), Fabricated black crayon, squared

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Seated Figure: Study for “A Vision of Antiquity”, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, Lyons 1824–1898 Paris), Fabricated black crayon, squared
Seated Figure: Study for “A Vision of Antiquity”, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, Lyons 1824–1898 Paris), Fabricated black crayon, squared

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