Repose

Between 1837 and 1865 Corot painted a number of graceful female nudes in dreamlike outdoor settings. This elegant and provocative painting, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1861, belongs to a rich tradition of classical nudes that reaches back to the Italian renaissance masters Giorgione and Titian. A 19th-century variation on this classical theme, Repose also recalls the exotic Near Eastern odalisques of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Corot’s near contemporary. But in Corot’s painting, the woman is a bacchante, or follower of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. Bacchantes were wood creatures who worshipped nature and often embodied emotions and irrationality. This bacchante rests on a panther’s skin, Bacchus’s attribute, yet the traditional vine wreath in her hair is intertwined with a modern French hair ribbon.