Analysis Of Romans Of The Deadance By Couture

‘Romans of the Decadance’, 1847, is Coutures’s most well renowned painting – famed for its subject of shocking debauchery, its stark contrast of light and darks, and middle ground stance between Romantic and Classical technique. Couture was primarily but not wholy commited to the practices of Classical and Ancient masters; he employed a mixture of both conformation and challenge to the expecatations and adhereances of the Academics by commenting on contemporary society through the medium of history painting. In his written manifesto advertising the opening of his new studio in 1855(?), Couture pledges alleigance to “the great art of ancienct Greece, the Renaissances masters and the admirable Flemish school” (Boime 1, p66). Through this statement,
He brought together binaries of difference and formed his own middle ground: Poussin/Rubens, combining the organisational precision of the Classical artists with the vivid colour of the Romantics, detailed sketches and spontaneity, varying between thick impasto and thinly layered paint as opposed to a neat and uniform finish. This could be seen as evidence of Couture growing tired of the limitations and strict expectations of the Academy, and so is creating a new standard of painting based on his own version of Academic principles - in touch with a modern audience and with a contemporary moral message. To illustrate how he creatively expressed this juste milieu, in ‘Romans’, Couture chose to favour a Romantic style freedom, over a strict adhereance to Classical tradition. This non legalistic approach however irritated some accademicians, as one is quoted by Couture (in Boime 2, p135), expressing “shock over not finding a Roman helmet (casque) on the triclinium of the Romans”. In many ways, what made this piece so popular and unusual was the way Couture reimagined history painting; challenging the perhaps outdated Academy and offering a new, freer perspective on the potential that a history painting could