The Loves of Paris and Helen
Paris has brought Helen home to Troy. He sits nearly nude with his lyre, looking up at her; she stands and leans against him, eyes lowered, neither resisting nor quite consenting. Behind them rises a porch held up by carved female figures — a quiet, luxurious interior far from any battlefield.
David painted this for the Comte d'Artois, the pleasure-loving brother of Louis XVI, and it shows a softer side of the sternest Neoclassical painter. The lovers are beautiful and idle — and that is the point. While they linger in this room, a thousand ships are being launched to fetch her back.
Helen is the most beautiful woman alive, a daughter of Zeus himself. Her marriage was a diplomatic problem: every king in Greece wanted her. Before her husband was chosen, all her suitors swore an oath — whoever won her, the rest would defend the marriage. She married Menelaus, king of Sparta.
Paris arrives in Sparta as a guest. When Menelaus leaves town, Paris sails home with Helen — with Aphrodite's help. Whether Helen went willingly or was taken by force is a question the Greeks themselves argued about, and painters have taken both sides ever since.
The oath now comes due. Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, the most powerful king in Greece, summons every ruler bound by it. A thousand ships gather to bring Helen back and burn Troy to the ground.
Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was the leader of French Neoclassicism, the painter of the Revolution and later of Napoleon. His clear, disciplined style set the course of European painting for a generation.
