Focus on The Dream of Ossian and explain the Interpretation.
The Dream of Ossian is considered a history painting, a genre to which the young Ingres desired to devote his career. Ossian offered a departure from the Greco-Roman Classicism, which dominated French art of the early 1800s. Yet, there are some reservations to the work's characterization as an anticlassicist history painting. The historical authenticity of Ossian was the subject of a contemporary debate, and the composition still features classical aspects such as the near-Roman style of armor worn by the warriors.Scholars have drawn a number of connections between Ingres's The Dream of Ossian and Gérard's Ossian Evoking Phantoms. The art historian Robert Rosenblum even notes that the former is "clearly indebted" to the latter. In both Ingres's and Gérard's paintings, Ossian evokes ghosts and memories of the past which tower over him. There is also a potential parallel between Malvina (or Evirallina) in Ingres's depiction and the ghost of an old bard in Gérard's, since both figures are seen reaching out towards Ossian. Other similarities include the poet's dress, the harpists, and the embracing lovers. Conversely, there are also multiple contrasting elements. Gérard's Ossian calls for the ghosts willfully while Ingres's Ossian only dreams about them. Furthermore, the art writer Henry Okun described Gérard's painting as a "romantic frenzy", with movement present in the blowing winds and flowing stream; Ingres's painting by contrast was said to be "replete with neoclassic calm", featuring clouds and ghosts that have a "cement-like consistency".In 1952, the art editor Thomas B. Hess saw The Dream of Ossian as "[having] all the emotional tone and sobbing fury that characterized the later appearance of Romantic painting." In her 1968 article on an Ingres exhibition at the Petit Palais, the English art historian Anita Brookner did not view the painting favorably. She described the depiction of the dream as "grisaille" and the painting as an Ingres work that must be "written off". In 2018, the anthropologist Peter Gow wrote that the work was an "extremely strange painting." He explained, "The young Ingres who painted The Dream of Ossian is either bizarrely reactionary or bizarrely prophetic. You don't know if it is simply a bad painting, harking back to the worst excesses of the Baroque, or a sort of precocious fumbling towards Cubism or even German Expressionist cinema."
Peter Gow Romantic painting Petit Palais Ossian Cubism harp Classicism Anita Brookner neoclassic history painting Baroque grisaille German Expressionist cinema Malvina Robert Rosenblum romantic Thomas B. Hess