The Sleep of Endymion

In 1791, while Paris was busy turning France into a republic, a young pupil of Jacques-Louis David sat in Rome and painted a sleeping shepherd. Girodet was 24 and held a state scholarship at the French Academy there, and this was the canvas he sent home to prove himself. The story goes that the moon goddess loved the shepherd Endymion and kept him forever asleep so she could visit him each night. Girodet tells almost none of that directly. Instead the moonlight does the work, sliding down the sleeping body while a small winged boy parts the branches to let it through. That soft, dissolving light was the opposite of the hard edges David taught, and it is why the picture caused a stir when it reached the Salon.