Academic Study of Adolescent Boy, Seen from Behind, Horace Vernet

The Vernet is a fascinating addition to the life-drawings, both for its continuation and deviation from the tradition of the academie. Rather than simply an exercise, it is a highly suggestive painting. Although the picture is clearly erotic, the use of an adolescent, androgynous boy, classically posed, gives the painting a haunting, poignant quality. The starkly bare still-life elements-- the wooden box and the small cushion with a split seam on which the boy rests his left hand-- are reminiscent in their austerity of such props in certain works by the great neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David. But Vernet seems to play with the tenets of that tradition and perhaps makes a conscious if subtle and ambiguous commentary on the rigours of that style. The painting presents a sophisticated interplay of neoclassical, romantic, and realistic elements. A compelling and successful example of Vernet's facility and eclecticism, the Princeton picture has an intensity not often found in the work of this artist.