0011AchillesWrath_Ingres

0011AchillesWrath_Ingres

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, "Jupiter and Thetis," 1811, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence

Ingres has depicted the key moment in Homer's Iliad when Thetis begs the sky-god to help her son, Achilles.

Standard Jovian iconography is seen throughout, with the eagle and scepter especially apparent. Ingres is clearly working with the model of Phidian Zeus. Zeus rests his arm on a cloudbank. The throne beneath his foot, depicts a frieze showing Zeus himself in the Gigantomachy wielding a thunderbolt. Hera is interested in the scene (rear left) as she watches Thetis the storied sea nymph ply the will of Zeus.

Despite its lush execution, the narrative offers little inventive mythological material. Ingres' 1806 "Portrait of Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne", which also plays on the Phidian Zeus, is considerably more bold. [Napoleon = Zeus]

There is probably not much to be made of the fact that Homer and Ingres disagree on right/left hand activities. G. Wills, Cincinnatus, p. 56: "Thetis is begging for what cannot be, for the life of her doomed son, Achilles. The shift of scepter, the closing round it of the giving [i.e. right] hand, precludes any favorable response. Zeus is the rule of Destiny here, unbending as the rod he lifts against Thetis' supple entreaty. Thetis is trying to reverse the fixed order of things, over which Jupiter presides. This explains the resentful gaze of the eagle, which has been displaced from the god's executing right hand. Thetis is 'out of her place,' literally, in making such a request.

Recall the ancient prophecy uttered by Prometheus that Thetis was destined to bear a son whose prowess would outstrip his father's. Though both Poseidon and Zeus had fancied Thetis before that, the prophecy disaffected them and they arranged for Peleus, an Argonaut and king of the Phthians, to fall fatefully in love with Thetis. Catullus 64 plays on this topic.