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FAITH IN MATERIALS: CHRIST GIVING THE KEYS TO SAINT PETER BY JEAN‐AUGUSTE‐DOMINIQUE INGRES
Author(s) -
SIEGFRIED SUSAN L.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2005.484.x
Subject(s) - saint , faith , painting , art , representation (politics) , narrative , materialism , christology , art history , christian tradition , religious experience , philosophy , literature , humanities , theology , law , politics , political science
This essay explores the larger ambitions and obsessions informing Ingres's Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter of 1820, which opens up a number of issues raised by religious art and, more broadly, by history painting in the nineteenth century: the relationship between narrative and iconic modes of representation; the generative role of close readings of textual and visual sources for pictorial invention; and the incongruous relationship between corporeality and incorporeality that was at the core of Christology. It examines the artist's attempt to lend substance to his pictorial motifs by going back to artefacts and historical evidence from the originary moment of Christian faith in ancient Rome. Ingres produced a modern religious art by working through, rather than against, the materialism of his age. This provoked a critical reaction against the painting that is examined for the light it sheds on a perceived conflict between the physical forms and spiritual content.