Paolo Malatesta et Francesca da Rimini aux Enfers

"Paolo Malatesta et Francesca da Rimini aux Enfers" (Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini in Hell), painted in 1883, takes its subject from Dante's "Inferno," Canto V, where the narrator encounters the souls of Paolo and Francesca — two thirteenth-century historical figures condemned to the circle of carnal sinners. Francesca da Rimini was the wife of Gianciotto Malatesta, but fell in love with his brother Paolo; the two were discovered and killed by Gianciotto. Dante, moved to tears by Francesca's account, faints from pity. The subject had extraordinary resonance in nineteenth-century art and literature — Ingres, Ary Scheffer, and Gustave Moreau all treated it, and Tchaikovsky composed a fantasy-overture on the subject in 1876. Painted at the very beginning of Martin's career, when he was twenty-three, this ambitious mythological canvas was the kind of large-scale Salon subject that established reputations. The work is held at the Centre national des arts plastiques.

Oil on canvas, likely in the academic Salon manner Martin employed before his adoption of Divisionism in the late 1880s. The infernal setting — dark, without natural light, the figures whirling in eternal wind — would have required a different tonal approach than the luminous outdoor scenes of his mature period. The composition likely draws on the iconographic tradition established by Scheffer and Ingres.