Satan

Jean-Jacques Feuchère created this sculpture during the height of French Romanticism, a movement that emphasized emotions, imagination, and the power of nature. Satan, an angel who rebelled against God and was therefore expelled from Heaven, sits wrapped in his wings after his fall from grace. In 1834, the artist and critic Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps wrote that it was a “personification, full of vigor and passion, of the evil genius struggling with his helplessness.” Here, Satan sulks, defeated and powerless, clutching a broken sword in one hand and resting his head on the other. Though some may find this work frightening and sinister, it demonstrates the emphasis of feeling and fantasy that was central to the nineteenth-century Romantic movement.

Image Caption

Jean-Jacques Feuchère, Satan, 1833, Bronze. Clark Art Institute, gift of Herbert and Carol Diamond, 2017.10.12