1833, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Studies for The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorien -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
Ingres made these studies in the final stage of preparation for his monumental altarpiece for the cathedral of Autun, a commission he took ten years to complete. The painting features the imminent martyrdom of Saint Symphorien, a Christian who was executed in the second century for refusing to worship the Roman gods.
Ingres made hundreds of drawings for the project, and the squaring in graphite, visible throughout the composition, reveals his process of transferring the figures from individual drawings to the canvas. It has been argued that these kinds of studies, which abandon spatial rationality and were never exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, were made primarily as an exploration of color relationships between figures. Nevertheless, Ingres continued to rework the figures’ contours and poses as well, in his characteristic practice of constant revision.
1833, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Studies for The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorien -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
Ingres made these studies in the final stage of preparation for his monumental altarpiece for the cathedral of Autun, a commission he took ten years to complete. The painting features the imminent martyrdom of Saint Symphorien, a Christian who was executed in the second century for refusing to worship the Roman gods.
Ingres made hundreds of drawings for the project, and the squaring in graphite, visible throughout the composition, reveals his process of transferring the figures from individual drawings to the canvas. It has been argued that these kinds of studies, which abandon spatial rationality and were never exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, were made primarily as an exploration of color relationships between figures. Nevertheless, Ingres continued to rework the figures’ contours and poses as well, in his characteristic practice of constant revision.