PELAGIO PALAGI

PELAGIO PALAGI (Bologna, 1775 – Turin, 1860) H Hercules struggles against Thanatos to free Alcestis from Hades Oil on canvas, cm 161 x 227 The recovery of this important painting, due to its extraordinary quality and the singular rarity of the subject, represents not only an exceptional contribution to the knowledge of Pelagio Palagi's pictorial production but also to the definition of the figurative landscape of Italian Neoclassicism, which is enriched by such a singular work. An artist of profound and refined culture, as demonstrated by the rich library bequeathed to the Archiginnasio of Bologna where it is still preserved, in his brilliant career between Rome, Milan, and Turin, he was able to face the commitment of history painting dealing with a rich repertoire that ranged from mythology to ancient and modern history, thus becoming one of the witnesses of the passage from Neoclassical to Romantic sensibility (for the reconstruction of his pictorial activity see Pelagio Palagi pittore. Paintings from the collections of the Municipality of Bologna, exhibition catalog - Bologna Civic Archaeological Museum - edited by C. Poppi, Milan, Electa, 1996). Even if the painting is never cited by the sources known so far, its style so characterized leads back to the hand of Palagi, and in any case, there is a precise term of reference in a smaller version, a sketch or a model, which presents some non-substantial variations compared to ours regarding the scenes, with small figures, represented in the background. While the most significant difference is found in the representation of the figure of Thanatos, the goddess of Death, against whom the hero fights. In the sketch, she appears transparent, as if the artist wanted to render her immateriality, while in this final version her body has the same consistency of reality, even if it is characterized by a livid complexion, effectively contrasting with the athletic figure of Hercules. Also, with regards to the pose, it is more secure and articulated, thanks to a dynamism of the anatomy and a gesture that is much more incisive and better defined. The story of Alcestis, wife of the Argonaut Admetus, king of Pherae, has had a great resonance as it is treated in Alcestis, the oldest tragedy by Euripides, but it is also present in other classical sources, from Apollodorus mythographer, to Diodorus Siculus, to the Fables of Hyginus, to Pausanias, and then taken up in modern times, in dramaturgy as in the famous Alceste by Alfieri, composed in 1798, and especially in melodrama, starting with the beautiful Alceste by Gluck, whose first performance took place at the Hofburg in Vienna in 1767. But the lesser-known works by Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, performed in London in 1774, and by Antonio Marcos Portugal in Venice in 1799, should also be remembered. As for painting, the most represented moment is the Death of Alcestis, as in the famous painting by Jean François Peron of 1785 kept at the Louvre. Thus, a myth that had exerted great attraction then, especially for its final resolution, that of Alcestis brought back to life thanks to the intervention of Hercules. Apollo, condemned by Zeus to serve a man for an entire year, had spent it with Admetus as a supervisor of his flocks. Because the king had behaved with great rectitude towards him, the god helped him to conquer Alcestis. On the wedding day, however, Admetus forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, so the goddess, as a warning of his imminent death, had snakes found in his bed. As the last hour was about to arrive, Apollo obtained from the goddesses of destiny, the Moirae, that his protégé could continue to live if someone sacrificed himself for him and accepted to die in his place. But no one was available, not even Admetus's old parents, so Alcestis decided to die in place of her husband, giving a sublime example of conjugal devotion. At this point, Hercules intervened, who was a guest in the palace of Admetus. It was he who, after engaging in a fierce struggle against Thanatos, the goddess of Death, managed to bring her back from the world of the dead and returned her to Admetus. Palagi, instead of representing the simpler moment of the death of Alcestis as Peyron had done, chose to visualize the struggle between Hercules and Thanatos, not seen as something abstract but as a terrible divinity with a livid and emaciated body, with an infernal gaze, whose obscene nudity is barely covered by the skin of a fierce animal. Both for the figure of Hercules, isolated in a pose of extraordinary plastic force, and for that of Thanatos, characterized by a movement that contains tremendous tension, the possible reference is to a theme much treated by the artist, also inspired by Greek tragedy, that of Orestes persecuted by the Furies after killing his father Agamemnon. We find it in beautiful drawings, the most finished of which was engraved by Francesco Rosaspina (the print appeared at the sale of the Gonelli bookstore in Florence on 10/11/2017, while for the drawings see LOmbra di Core. Drawings from the Palazi fondo of the Biblioteca dellArchiginnasio, exhibition catalog - Bologna, Galleria Comunale dArte Moderna - edited by C. Poppi, Bologna, Grafis Edizioni, 1989, pp. 76-77, 122-125). Another possible comparison, regarding the figure of Hercules, are the tense bodies of the athletes represented in the fresco, now lost but known through preparatory drawings and old photographs, relating to The Struggle, executed between 1821 and 1822 for the Sala della Lanterna in Palazzo Reale in Milan. Our painting can also be referred to a similar date, which for the complexity of its composition and the quality of the execution refers to the more mature Palagi. The motif of the clash, which is emblematic of the continuous one between life and death, between Hercules and Thanatos, constitutes the center of a more complex representation, both in the rendering of the ancient architectures in the background that stand out against the beautiful sky, and of the scenes of pain in the background, with on the left the figure of Alcestis who is about to die, which have a bit the same function as the chorus in the ancient tragedy.