Symposium (painting)

Symposium or Das Gastmahl des Platon[1] are

paintings by the German painter Anselm Feuerbach
from c. 1869 and 1873/74 of a moment from Plato's
Symposium, when the drunken Alcibiades and revelers
enter the house of the poet Agathon.[2][3] Socrates, near
the wall at right-centre, turns his back on the scene, and
bows his head.[3]

The 1869 painting is in the Staatliche Kunsthalle

Karlsruhe and the 1874 painting in the Alte First version of the Symposium by Feuerbach, 1869.
Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.[3]

History
Symposium was first displayed in 1869 at the Great
International Art Exhibition, in Munich Germany.
During the exhibition critics wrote, “a sea of ice that
had forced itself undesired into a perfume shop.”
Another critic, “An extreme of ugliness in form and
color which borders on vulgarity and filth ... as if
Feuerbach had put his paint brush into ink and calcium
water instead of color.” The image ended up in a private
collection. Feuerbach painted another more colorful
version, which is since 1878 in the collection of the
National Gallery in Berlin (Alte Nationalgalerie). 1874 version of the Symposium.
However, the earlier 1869 version has been considered
by some, to be the superior of the two works on the
subject.[1] In the second version the decor and costumes have become still more
elaborate and Victorian.[3]

The subject was not common, but had been depicted in an etching of 1648 by
Pietro Testa, with a similar basic composition, including Socrates ignoring the
intrusion.

References Etching of 1648 by Pietro Testa

1. J.G. Lesher. "Some Notable Afterimages of Plato's Symposium" (http

s://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6321). Harvard University.
2. J.G. Lesher. "Feuerbachs's Das Gastmahl des Platon and Platon's
Symposium" (https://philosophy.unc.edu/files/2013/10/New-Feuerbac
h.pdf) (PDF). University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill.
3. "The Symposium (Second Version)" (https://www.google.com/cultura
linstitute/beta/asset/the-symposium-second-version/sQGa34z2sZaR
mg). University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill – via Google Arts.
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This page was last edited on 21 August 2018, at 01:08 (UTC).

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