Philosophers Heraclitus And Democritus – Northern School Circa 1700

Oil on canvas
This pair of portraits represents the two Greek philosophers Heraclitus (544 – 480 b. JC) and Democritus (460 – 370 b. JC), whose marked expressions reveal their respective thoughts. Seneca indeed says that Heraclitus "wept, felt sorry for all those he met happy and satisfied", making him "a compassionate soul, but too weak, of those who had to be pitied". On the contrary, Democritus "never appeared in public without laughing, so little did he find the acts that everyone did seriously". Thus Democritus is represented laughing at the theater of humanity, here materialized by the terrestrial globe; the red of his tunic embodying his sanguine temperament, while the blue of Heraclitus' robe refers to a certain form of consciousness. Older than Democritus as evidenced by his long beard, Heraclitus collapsed with folded hands on the globe, mourning the misfortunes of humanity. The opposition of the two philosophers is particularly topical in the literature of the 17th century which tends to group the two men into a single entity embodying two facets of melancholy according to a tragicomic register. The notions are opposed and reversed: their excessive attitudes are in fact not a sign of passion but the proof of a high degree of consciousness. However, the one who laughs and whom Socrates accused of being mad is in fact the wise man according to Seneca who recommends us "not to find the vices of human beings hateful, but laughable, and to imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus", to take all things with good humor and lightness because "it is much more in keeping with human nature to make fun of existence than to moan about it". For the Christians of the Grand Siècle, the tears of Heraclitus are a breach of the theological virtue of hope by which the faithful must "place their trust in the promises of Christ, relying not on their strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit”. It is to Bramante that we owe the iconographic milestone of the two Greek philosophers experiencing their emotion around a globe, in a fresco he produced in 1486 for the poet Gaspare Visconti. However, the manner of our work undoubtedly places our artist among the painters of the schools of the North. Indeed, the marked expressions of the two philosophers refer to the taste for caricatural figures of 17th century Flemish genre painting. Thus, if the lack of emphasis distances him from the very baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens, our painter nevertheless takes up the gestures of the hands and the dresses enveloping the terrestrial globes that the Antwerp master had composed in two paintings representing these philosophers, made in 1603 and 1638 in Spain and today preserved respectively in the museum of Valladolid and in the Prado. Finally, our artist also borrows from the style of the Dutch Rembrandt a certain impasto of the key for the faces, important luminous contrasts and a dark chromatic range. As such, the turban worn by Heraclitus is reminiscent of the many representations that Rembrandt delivered of King David. Thus our artist synthesizes the multiple contributions specific to the Dutch and Flemish schools of the 17th century.

We have chosen to present our philosophers in precious green and ocher polychrome casseta frames.
Dimensions: 26.5 x 22 cm – 49 x 44 cm with the frame
Sold with invoice and expertise certificate

Bibliography:
- DAWSON, Kiang, "Bramante's "Heraclitus and Democritus": The Frieze", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1988, 51. Bd., H. 2 (1988 ), p. 262-268.
- DORION, Louis-André, “Heraclitus or Herakles? about Epictetus, Manual 15”, Review of Ancient Philology, Literature and History, 2015/1 (Volume LXXXIX), p. 43-63.
- VILA BAUDRY, Bérénice, “The laughter of Democritus and the crying of Heraclitus. The Representation of the Philosophers of Antiquity in the Literature of the Golden Ages », Miscellanies from Casa de Velázquez, 39-1 | 2009, 277-281.