Guérin's Painting of Phèdre and the Post-Revolutionary Revival of Racine

Abstract

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833) is best known, if at all, for the painting of 1799 called The Return of Marcus Sextus from Exile, which was a deliberate allusion to the homecoming of French émigrés following the Revolution.1 Since Guérin's current reputation among non-specialists barely extends any further, it is remarkable that to his contemporaries he for a time appeared to be the only serious rival to Jacques-Louis David. Even E.J. Delécluze, whose monograph of 1855 on his former master was intended to revitalize a tarnished heritage, and was hardly predisposed toward Guérin, was forced to recall that the Marcus Sextus had been “accueilli par le public avec des applaudissements dont aucun succès obtenu depuis ne peut donner l'idée.”2 Another painting, however, less well-known today, was also central to Guérin's reputation and to the rivalry with David—the Phèdre et Hippolyte of 1802 (Fig. 1). The remarks of Stendhal, recorded in his diary in 1804, offer a preliminary suggestion of its critical success, which we shall look at more closely later: “Martial me mène chez D[ugazon]; nous disons chacun le récit de Cinna. Je ne conçois rien de mieux, rien de plus franc (de moins maniéré) que ce profond acteur nous a dit: il m'est rarement arrivé de ne concevoir rien de mieux. La Phèdre de Guérin est peut-être la seule chose qui ait produit cet effet sur moi.”3 The fact of these successes and the implications of these opinions should certainly earn Guérin the right to a total reassessment.4