Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo

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Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo
William Hogarth, 1759
Oil-on-canvas
100.4 × 126.5 cm, 39.5 × 49.8 in
Tate Gallery, London

Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo is a painting by British artist William Hogarth. Finished in 1759, the work was Hogarth's central piece for an exhibition he participated in in 1761, at which he displayed seven other artworks. It depicts a dramatic plot point in one of the novelle in Boccaccio's Decameron. While Hogarth had expected this work to be a masterpiece of dramatic painting, the work was met with criticism and ridicule.

Contents

[edit] Analysis

Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo illustrates a crucial scene from a story in the Decameron, a medieval novel by Italian author and poet, Giovanni Boccaccio.[1] The main figure seen in the center left, clothed in flowing silk and seated at an ornate wooden table, is Sigismunda, the heroine of one of the novelle[2] In her hands she clasps a golden goblet containing the heart of her dead husband, Guiscardo. Killed by Sigismunda's own father, Prince Tancred, Guiscardo was a mere servant and court Page[3] and was murdered because Tancred considered his and Sigismunda's marriage, which they undertook in secret, to be inappropriate.[1] Despite having earlier refused to submit to her father's tyranny and therefore not to shed a tear in his presence, Sigismunda now weeps openly as she looks upon her husband's heart and realises the heinous acts of Tancred.[1]

[edit] Criticism

This painting was one of Hogarth's last works, and was exhibited only three years before his death in 1764.[4] Hogarth is said to have painted Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo with the intent of proving that he could equal works of the "old Italian masters", and he made the work with the intent of it being one of his masterpieces. However, critics met Sigismunda mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo with vicious criticism, and marked Hogarth's attempt to emulate the drama depicted in older Italian paintings foolhardy and ridiculous. One of the fiercest critics of Hogarth's work was the critic and writer Horace Walpole, who compared Hogarth's portrayal of the Sigismunda character to that of a "maudlin prostitute".[5] Hogarth made certain changes to the painting, such as removing the blood on Sigismunda, in attempt to appease his critics, but the ridicule at the exhibition persisted, and after only around ten days, he replaced the painting with another of his canvases, Chairing the Member.[4]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Sigismunda Mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo 1759. Tate.org. Retrieved on 5 June 2008.
  2. ^ Gouk & Hills, p.155
  3. ^ Ruggiero, p.177
  4. ^ a b Hargraves, p.34
  5. ^ Anonymous, "The First Exhibition of the Royal Academy".

[edit] References

  • Hargraves, Matthew (2006). Candidates for Fame: The Society of Artists of Great Britain. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11004-9. 
  • Gouk, Penelope; Helen Hills (2005). Representing Emotions: New Connections in the Histories of Art, Music, and Medicine. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-3058-7. 
  • Ruggiero, Guido (2007). Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the Italian Renaissance. JHU Press. ISBN 0-8018-8516-7. 
  • "The First Exhibition of the Royal Academy" (June 26). The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 36 (1065): 406. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Hinnant, Charles H. (1973). "Dryden and Hogarth's Sigismunda". Eighteenth-Century Studies 6 (4): 462-474. ISSN 0013-2586.