Meditating with Francesco Giuseppe Casanova (1727-1803)

Before photography, how could we capture the moment? Reporting what was seen on a battlefield was then a challenge. However, for official commissions supposed to glorify the exploits of a sovereign, salon painters recomposed scenes by posing the bodies as in a scene from ancient mythology. The Italian painter Francesco Giuseppe Casanova – younger brother of Giacomo, the seducer – trained in this genre, studying the battle paintings in the gallery of the Electors of Saxony in Dresden (Germany).

He quickly gained a reputation in social salons for his art. But here, the view becomes confused. Clouds and dust mingle in a tumult of light and dark tones, mixing the bodies of the living and the dead. From the charge of the cavalry and its epic breath, all that remains is this frightened white horse, with blurred contours, mounted by a rider seen from behind, fighting with bayonets for its own survival. The gesture of the painter, living in Paris since 1751, is daring, telling much more about the madness of these fights to the death than the heroism of Epinal’s images of war. The philosopher Denis Diderot remained baffled in front of this painting: “What has become of your talent? he asked him. Your touch is no longer proud as it was, your coloring less vigorous.” Perhaps, quite simply, the artist gave up his weapons in the face of so much violence? At the end of his life, he developed another outlook: his tapestry cartoons representing rural landscapes were to be very successful. Because battlefields only last so long. The wheat fields are eternal.