Housed in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest in France
Jules-Élie Delaunay (June 13, 1828 – September 5, 1891) was a French academic painter, one of the finest of his time period. He was born at Nantes and studied under Flandrin and at the École des Beaux Arts. He worked mostly in the classicist manner of Ingres until, after winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Italy in 1856, and abandoned the ideal of Raphaelesque perfection for the sincerity and severity of the quattrocentists.
Educated at an elite local school, his talents were spotted by Joachim Sotta, a local artist, who taught him initially. In 1846 Delaunay was introduced to Hippolyte Flandrin, who had been Ingres’ favourite student, and two years later enrolled in his workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
In the famous paintings, Sappho kissing her Lyre, Sappho is a famous ancient Greek lyrical poet from the island of Lesbos, shown in an very emotional and vulnerable position while embracing or kissing her musical instrument.
In Sappho Kissing Her Lyre, Delaunay presents the poet in an intimate and deeply emotional moment. Rather than depicting Sappho in a conventional heroic or monumental manner, he focuses on her private relationship with her instrument. Her embrace of the lyre creates a sense of emotional attachment, almost as if the instrument has become an extension of her poetic identity. The act of kissing the lyre gives the scene a particularly tender and vulnerable quality, suggesting affection, longing, and an intense connection between the artist and her art.
Thus, the painting brings together classical subject matter, academic technical, and psychological expression, making it one of the finest pieces of art to ever exist.
Sappho Kissing her Lyre is an oil painting by Jules-Élie Delaunay, a well-known French artist from the 19th-Century. Sappho's uses poetry to express her deep emotions and experiences. Her works are characterized by their directness, intimacy, and vivid imagery and also offer a glimpse into the lives and experiences of women in ancient Greece. In one of her poems (Poem 31), Sappho expresses feelings of jealousy because a woman she loves has gone off and married someone else, a man. She describes herself as feeling so devastated that it is almost as if she were dead.
