L'Effroi

L'Effroi (Fright) from around 1775 captures a moment of sudden alarm in one of Greuze's expressive female heads. The dramatic emotional states depicted in these works influenced later Romantic artists and anticipated the nineteenth-century fascination with extreme psychological expression. Greuze's oil technique produced smooth, carefully modelled surfaces for his sentimental figure subjects, with particular attention to the expressive rendering of faces—weeping eyes, parted lips—that...

Wide eyes and an open mouth convey shock, modeled with Greuze's signature luminous flesh technique against a dark background that heightens the dramatic impact.