Ingres's reading - The undoing of narrative

Ingres's reading of key classical texts, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1516), Dante's Inferno (1314), and Virgil's Aeneid (19 BC), is regarded as fundame ntal to understanding his material attempts to visualize his narrative subj ects. The essay focuses on three paintings, which represent quite different forms of narrative disunity in his work: Roger Freeing Angelica (disjuncti on), Paolo and Francesca (excessive unity), and Virgil Reading the Aeneid t o Augustus, Octavia and Livia, or Tu Marcellus Eris (a coming apart of clas sical composition). His paintings' affective relation to the viewer is cons idered with regard to the sadism of their themes and their fetishized treat ment of surfaces.