The Wounded Philoctetes

A screaming, naked man is bent over in pain. His bottom sticks out at us. He is cradling his foot. The Greek legendary hero Philoctetes was severely wounded by a snakebite and left behind by his comrades on the way to wage war against Troy. The painting is one of the few works by a Danish artist to have attracted international attention in its own day and be copied by others. It did so because it breaks away from the period’s prevailing ideals of noble serenity and sublimity in art, traits that would later be epitomised in the work of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. The artist Nicolai Abildgaard was a romantic. He sympathised with the liberal, revolutionary Jacobins in Paris, who fought to overthrow the French monarchy and establish a republic. However, he had to make a living as the Danish king’s favourite painter, so there was a lot to bow down before and scream about (50 Favorites in the SMK Collection).