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Ossian is seated in the center foreground, dreaming while leaning on his harp. The poet is accompanied in the rocky landscape by a hound. The figures above Ossian are ghosts of the past and are part of his titular dream. The vision is framed on the right by Ossian's son Oscar bearing a spear and shield and on the left by a seated woman who holds a bow with one hand and extends the other towards Ossian. This figure has been interpreted by some to be Ossian's wife Evirallina and by others to be Oscar's wife Malvina. Behind this female figure is Ossian's father, Fingal, who leads a group of warriors, some of whom are embraced by naked women. In the center of the dream, four maidens play harps in the clouds before a seated and long-haired Snow King Starno.The literary source of the painting's scene can be found in a passage in The War of Inisthona from James Macpherson's Poems of Ossian. The passage relates how Malvina's harp charms Ossian to sleep, during which he dreams of the past. The dreaming scene is also featured in Act IV, scene iii of the opera Ossian, ou Les bardes (English: Ossian, or The Bards), which contains descriptions of the armed warriors and their lovers that are likewise found in the painting. The inclusion of four harpists in the painting is another possible reference to the opera.Ingres himself recorded the following about the scene's subject:Ireland was the theater. On the last of Fingal's exploits, he solemnly consigned to Ossian his lance which had served him for the defense of the weak and oppressed. Then, deprived of his father and of his son Oscar, [who was] slain treacherously, blind and sick, he [Ossian] charmed his unhappiness and his misery by chanting of the exploits of his friends. He often crawled along the tomb of his son and father and there plucked with his trembling fingertips. The wife of dear Oscar, Malvina, never abandoned him; it was to her that he addressed the majority of his poems about the valiant Oscar ...
Beneath this, Ingres added some notes for the painting:victory of Fingal over Caracalla / Noise of the torrential storm / ground, heather and deserted lands / Brilliant stars / the baying of hounds.
Ossian The War of Inisthona harp Ireland Ossian, ou Les bardes Oscar Malvina James Macpherson Fingal Caracalla