Page 310 - Beholding Liberty!

310 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
II.8.Α.3
[Nikolaos Pantelis Nikolakis]
Leonidas at Thermopylae, An Heroic Story
Composed by an anonymous in favour of the eager for learning
Printed now for first time, financed by the honourable and loving the Muses, nobleman of the island of Hydra Captain Nikolaos Panteli Nikolakis
[s.l.] 1816
Library of the Hellenic Parliament
ON THE EVE OF THE GREEK REVO- LUTION, an anonymous Greek composed the ro- mantic historical drama Leonidas at Thermopylae: A Heroic Story, published in 1816 by the Hydra captain Nikolaos Pantelis Nikolakis, providing no other infor- mation about the book. The play was successfully staged by the Odessa Greek community theatre company in October 1817.
Similar plays were written and performed in Europe, particularly in France, as early as the eighteenth century, including C.H. d’Estaing’s Les Thermopyles (published in 1791 but never performed), Loaisel
II.8.Α.4
Jean Nicolas Laugier (1785-1875) after Jacques Louis David (1748-1825)
de Tréogate’s Le Combat de Thermopyles (staged in 1793, published in 1794), Guilbert de Pixérécourt’s Léonidas, ou le Depart des Spartiates (1799). At the height of the Greek Revolution, Michel Pichat (or Pichald) published the philhellenic play Léonidas, which premiered in November 1825 at the Comedie Française in Paris to great success, owed to the avid philhellenic sentiment of the time as acknowledged by the author, Michel Pichat, himself. The leading actor, François Joseph Talma, became the toast of the audience; he even lent his features to a statue of Leonidas from the hand of the important sculptor David d’Angers in 1827.
Leonidas at Thermopylae, 1826
engraving, 59 x 79 cm
signed: David 1815. (bottom right) - Laugier 1826. (bottom left)
inscribed: Λεωνίδας εν Θερμοπύλαις / Dédié aux Hellènes. / A Paris, chez tous les Marchands d’Estampes. / Imprimié par Durand & Sauve (low centre)
Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 871
THE PRE-EMINENT NEOCLASSICAL PAINTER Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) commemorated the heroic Leonidas in his impos- ing (395×531 cm) oil painting Leonidas at Ther- mopylae (Louvre Museum, inv. no 3690), repro- duced here from an engraving.
David engaged with the subject on several oc- casions as early as 1798/99 and for a number of years, until 1814, as evidenced by a series of drawings of both the entire composition and indi- vidual figures.
He opted for a multi-figure composition, which, despite the number of figures and complementary
elements, is organised with absolute clarity. The image possesses the necessary – for the desid- erata of Neoclassicism – archaeological validity, based on Herodotus’ account of the battle and persons involved; many of the pictorial elements were drawn from Barthélemy’s Anacharsis [cat. nos I.1.3 and III.8.A.2]. The clarity of design en- ables the viewer to grasp the artist’s concept and the emphasis he places on neoclassical principles, in accordance with the art theorist Winkelmann’s notion of “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur”. In fact, for Leonidas, his central figure, the artist drew from the figure of Ajax as depicted in a seal