Focus on this artwork and explore the Description and style.
The work is a highly expressive depiction of Ugolino della Gherardesca from Canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno. In the story, the Pisan count Ugolino is sentenced to die in a tower prison with his children and grandchildren. Carpeaux shows Ugolino at the moment where he considers cannibalism. The work is emblematic of the Romantic style's heightened physical and emotional states. Ugolino looks into the distance. His posture ignores the four children that cling to his body as if he were unaware they were there—the youngest is curled at his feet and possibly dead. In the source text, Ugolino grieves the agonizing death of his children and whether he eats his children's flesh is unclear to the reader, as it is in the sculpture. Ugolino's body is muscular even though he is starving. Its style reflects the Vatican's Laocoön and His Sons.
Romantic Ugolino della Gherardesca Laocoön and His Sons Ugolino Inferno