This was, originally, our 100th post in the old incarnation of the Seduction of and I liked the painting so much that I made it the blog's header. So it is only right, in the new Seduction of Venus, that it becomes the first post.
This is a gently seductive piece by French painter Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
(1724-1805). Painted in 1770, it shows Mars and Venus, rather racily for
the time, in bed together. No doubt the use of the word
"allegory" in the title helped to make this more acceptable.
The whole atmosphere of the picture is determinedly post-coital
and Lagrenée has Mars pushing aside the (beautifully rendered) drapes
around the bed to reveal the naked hidden treasure within. Your eye is
immediately drawn to Venus' pale body; her skin painted in much lighter tones
than Mars'. Venus has tamed Mars, as his abandoned sword and helmet
attest, through love (or, perhaps, sex).
Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
Lagrenée won the Prix de
Rome at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1749 and went
to Rome to study under Carle van Loo, a Rococo rival of Boucher and
teacher of Fragonard as well. He was received into the Académie in 1755 and from
1760 until 1762, he directed the Saint Petersburg Academy at the Russian court.
When he returned to France he became a professor at the French Académie and
although he painted some large official commissions, it was generally his
smaller works which were better received and more popular with collectors. This painting, for example, which now hangs in the J. Paul Getty museum
in Los Angeles, is a comparatively modest 40 inches by 30 inches in size.
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