The Survival of an Antique Motif in 18th-century French Art Criticism The Veil of Timanthes

Abstract

The paper examines the critical reception of an ancient motif: the sacrifice of Iphigenia painted by Timanthes, and its version represented by the 18th-century French artist Carle Vanloo. After an overview of the rhetorical and theoretical background, it analyses some writings of French art critics to see whether they agree with the artifice of Timanthes (who hid the face of Agamemnon, the father of Iphigenia, behind a veil) or prefer Vanloo’s solution, which revealed in his painting the deep sorrow of the Greek king. The question of what the painter and the playwright can show and what they must hide also raises problems of the possibilities of literary and artistic representation.