Alexandre Cabanel

Every post here is by Alexandre Cabanel.

Erisava Staff Jul 20

The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel, 1863

Content Warning

Nudity

The Birth of Venus

Musée d'Orsay · wikidata.org

Public domain

About as approved-of as painting got at the time — the emperor apparently bought it straight off the Salon wall. Two years later Manet showed a nude in a not-so-different pose and Paris was outraged, which suggests the rule was never really about bare skin, but about who was allowed to be bare.

Erisava Staff Jul 19

Fallen angel by Alexandre Cabanel, 1847

Content Warning

Nudity

Fallen angel

Musée Fabre · wikidata.org

Public domain

This is supposed to be Lucifer, watching the other angels head up to heaven without him. Cabanel was apparently in his mid-twenties when he painted it, and it's the piece that got him noticed.