Date: 1788

Dimensions: Overall: 64 9/16 x 76 3/8 in. (1 m 64 cm x 1 m 94 cm)

Medium: Oil on canvas

Credit Line: Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O'Hara Fund

Additional Information: Giroust trained in the studio of Joseph-Marie Vien, a pioneer of Neoclassicism. Among the other students was Jacques-Louis David, who would emerge as the leading artist of his generation. In 1775 Vien became director of the French academy in Rome, taking David with him. Giroust was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1778, and his sojourn at the French Academy once again brought him into contact with David. "Oedipus at Colonus," the work with which Giroust earned entrance to the academy, embodies the formal, thematic, and ethical issues of neoclassicism. The painting depicts the climactic confrontation between the blind king Oedipus and his son Polynices, who had sent him into exile. Aware that the place of his father's demise will be blessed, Polynices, with his sisters Antigone and Ismene, entreats the aged Oedipus to return to Thebes. But Oedipus rejects his son and forsakes his last chance to return to the city he had once ruled. Giroust's choice of a blind hero as the subject for his masterpiece was surely informed by David's famous depiction of the blind Blesarius, completed in 1780. Indeed, in style and content Giroust's Oedipus is a paradigm of Davidian Neoclassicism. Depicted with enormous clarity and concision, the drama unfolds on a shallow stagelike space parallel to the picture plane. The gestures and facial expressions of the characters - especially the outstretched arm of Oedipus at the center of the composition - are extremely eloquent. The architectural severity of the Doric temple at right as well as the stringent purity of the primary colors of the garments further enhance the intense drama.

Object Number: 1992.22.FA