Explore the Critical reception of this artwork, Phaedra (Cabanel).
Cabanel reached the height of his popularity when he showed the Birth of Venus, receiving critical acclaim for its innovation and beauty, recognizable even by Napoleon III who purchased the work. However, by the time he painted Phaedra, admiration for his style had dramatically lessened. Critics called the work lackluster and confusing. This was likely due to the odd mixture of Cabanel's wish to please the public while retaining the academic style and adding a personal, unique perspective. Academic critics thought Cabanel's portrayal of the classical Phaedra in a weak state was unbefitting, and his composition boring, especially in contrast to the luxurious setting. The avant-gardists completely rejected the academic style as a part of their struggle for artistic progression. Further, his public was either strictly academic or progressive, so Cabanel's in-between style appeared flat and uninteresting to his contemporaries. Even after his death in 1889, later critics looked back on Cabanel's works with disdain. Camille Mauclair in The Great French Painters described other of Cabanel's works from the Salon of 1880 as “unpleasant,” “without life or emotion,” and “pictures that do not take their proper place in the building.” However, a modern audience can view the work with a different perspective, not bound by the French Academy or the need to expressly think in terms of the avant-garde.  Cabanel's Phaedra can be seen as a culmination of the artist's practices and experiences melding together as a retrospective of his past, while struggling to retain a foothold in a fast-pace art world. Now, the richness of painting can be appreciated as it appears from an expert hand, finding the beauty in the “unpleasant” and emotion in the mundane, asserting, finally, a “proper place.”
Camille Mauclair Phaedra Salon Birth of Venus Napoleon III