Plato´s Symposium

Anslem Feuerbach completed "Plato's Symposium" in 1869. The three-by-six meter work by far failed to achieve the reception that Feuerbach had hoped for. The subject of the composition is Plato's work on the nature of Eros. The viewer witnesses the festive gathering at the home of tragedian Agathon. He has just won a prize for a play and is celebrating with his friends, including Socrates and the comic poet Aristophanes.

They are engrossed in a serious discussion of sensuality, the stepwise path, platonic love, and pedagogical Eros. From the left, a loud and buoyant procession enters the broad stage: The drunken youth Alkibiades and his bacchanalian following seek to join the crowd of well-wishers, and Agathon welcomes him with an elegant gesture and a drink. Feuerbach studied the frescoes of Pompeii as a model for the ancient architectural scenery before which this two-part scene is situated, and for the wall paintings, which he himself considered to be the most successful portion of the painting. He put tremendous effort into this work, and into the more richly decorated and coloured version that followed, which is located in Berlin today.

It was to become a summary of his own understanding of the artist's existence, and certainly also of an unresolved discord. Quite suddenly - as the layout of the painting suggests - the world of thinkers, of the intellectually active, meets with the animalism of the youthful Alkibiades, who bears traits of the Apollo Belvedere. Feuerbach's father had been intensively occupied with this subject: the Apollonian and the Dionysian, moderation and abundance confront one another, but are not reconciled. The overall impression of the painting then, as now, was of a work not truly pervaded by life or emotion. Rather, it bears witness to the incredible struggle to find and retain classical measure.

Feuerbach' capacity for spontaneous virtuosity, free from intellectual ballast, is not to be found here. He demonstrated this talent, for example, in the fresh flower works and portraits - as also in his excellent early self-portrait from 1851/52- which hang in the hall dedicated to him in the Kunsthalle. During Feuerbach's lifetime, the marmoreal, pallid colouring and stiffness of the figures was criticized. The fact that this painting ended in private rather than public ownership was the most bitter of disappointments for Feuerbach.