Ulysses Fleeing the Cave of Polyphemus,

1812

Eckersberg spent 1811 to 1812 in the studio of David, practicing life drawing and history painting. One of a series of subjects from the <em>Odyssey</em>, this is perhaps the most compelling. The giant Polyphe­mus in his cave looms over a sheep, searching for Ulysses and his companions, who blinded the one-eyed monster. The men have escaped beneath the bellies of the flock; Ulysses, at the end, prepares to join his companions. The Mediterranean light is dazzling. We viewers remain imprisoned in the tenebrous foreground as Ulysses slips away. Eckersberg’s study of the eloquent contours of Greek vase painting is put to good use here. Although the Danish artist was in Paris to learn from David, the most revered teacher in Europe at the time, his ambivalence can be read in some of the anti-classical tendencies seen here. The disjunction of the large-scale giant Polyphemus and the small Ulysses is true to the story, but disturbing, while the extremes of dark and light add to the monster’s menace. Eckersberg was the citizen of a French ally in the Napoleonic Wars, but as a protégé of the king of Denmark, who underwrote his studies in France and later travels to Italy, and with whose heir he carried on a friendly correspondence, he may well have had mixed feelings about David, a regicide who had cast his vote for the death of Louis XVI. Eckersberg’s letters show he found Paris and its conventions an uncomfortable fit. Although David considered Eckersberg talented and encouraged his studies, this raw and frank history painting expresses a sensibility different from that of his more stylish French students.