Paris

Wilhelm Tischbein · c. 1787

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

63 × 49.7 cm (24 13/16 × 19 9/16 in.); Framed: 80.4 × 67.4 × 8.9 cm (31 5/8 × 26 1/2 × 3 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Tischbein's *Paris* presents the Trojan prince with the serene, sculptural poise of a classical ideal — a figure poised between mortal beauty and mythological consequence. Wilhelm Tischbein belonged to a generation of German painters drawn south by the pull of antiquity, and by the late 1780s he was deeply embedded in Rome's circle of Neoclassical artists and intellectuals. His figures carry the clarity of ancient relief sculpture — contours clean, flesh luminous, drapery deliberate — yet they never feel cold. There is a humanising warmth in his handling of paint that separates him from stricter academic contemporaries. The year this painting was made, 1787, was also the year Tischbein famously welcomed Goethe into his Rome studio and began the portrait now known as *Goethe in the Roman Campagna* — one of the most celebrated images in German art history. The two works share the same atmosphere of sun-warmed Mediterranean reflection. A hand-painted oil reproduction renders the subtleties that print simply cannot: the layered glazes that give Tischbein's skin tones their depth, the quiet tension in Paris's posture, the soft gradations of the background. Each brushstroke is applied by hand, keeping faith with the original's restrained, considered craft.