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Chains: David, Canova, and the Fall of the Public Hero in Postrevolutionary France

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Satish Padiyar stirs up controversy in the best manner of the word. Many people view the period of neoclassicism as a reaction to the Revolutinary Spirit that began in France and quickly spread through the world. In this book CHAINS: DAVID, CANOVA, AND THE FALL OF THE PUBLIC HERO IN POSTREVOLUTIONARY FRANCE he divides his investigation into the following chapter titles: Heroism After the French Revolution: David's Leonidas at Thermopylae; Inheriting Greek Eros: Anacreontism and Homosexual Desire; Kant and the Postrevolutionary Subject: The Aesthetics of Freedom; Subject and Surface: Canova and the Reinvention of Classical Sculpture; and Sade/David, in Chains.

Opening with an examination of Jacques-Louis David's 1814 painting begun when David was imprisoned after the overthrow of Robespierre but not finished until 1814 - Leonidas at the Pass of Thermopylae - Padiyar explores the conflict between painter David and sculptor Canova in the manner in which they portrayed Man after in the impact of the Revolution and enters the terrain of male figure worship almost to the point of fetishism. It reads as though the courage of common man to overthrow monarchies elevated them to the mythic hero stance of the massively muscular and sensuous Greek and Roman heroes of the past. The author manages to step aside from his artist characters to also examine the writing of such diverse men as the Marquis de Sade and philosopher Immanuel Kant. It is another way of defining and describing the Enlightenment. The 'chains' are broken!

The book is amply illustrated with both full color and black and white illustrations that serve the text well. The author writes with the facility of a novelist despite the thesis-like concept he is describing. Grady Harp, March 11