The Deposition Of Atala

The deposition of Atala
Follower of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (Montargis, 1767 - Paris, 1824)

19th-20th century

Oil on canvas
47 x 65 cm. - Framed 67 x 84 cm

The proposed painting is inspired by the painting 'Atala at the sepulchre', a pivotal work of the French pre-romantic current, which unites in the same canvas the themes of sacrifice and death in a moving scene, by the painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.

A favourite pupil of Jean-Louis David, from whom he inherited a formal neoclassical language, he presented this painting, considered to be among his best creations, at the Paris Salon in 1808, and today it is exhibited in the Louvre Museum.

The Entombment of Atala
1808
Oil on canvas, 207 x 267 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/girodet/atala.html


The subject is taken from the novel by François-René de Chateaubriand - a writer considered to be the founder of French literary Romanticism - which tells of the unhappy and ill-fated love of Chactas, a young indigenous man, for the daughter of a Spaniard and an Indian convert to Christianity, the beautiful Atala.

Here the indigenous warrior Chactas weeps clutching the legs of his beloved, the Native American convert to Christianity Atala, who belongs to a rival tribe. Although the two have managed to flee their respective families in pursuit of their love, Atala is bound from birth by a vow of chastity, and prefers to ingest poison, which soon leads to her death, in order not to give in to the temptation of love for Chactas.