This depiction of Ariadne in Naxos, painted in 1816 by Franz Gerhard von Kügelgen, born in Bacharach, on February 26, 1772, was part, together with another of her works, with Andromeda as subject, of an allegorical cycle representing pains of human destiny, as the painter perceived them. As in the case of the mythical Ariadne, abandoned by her beloved Theseus, where fate forces us to desire first of all that which, in the same surprising way, in the end leads to a definitive disappointment. A reference, by the painter of the Romantic period, to the disillusionment with the Napoleonic age. Thus, amidst the aesthetic spells of the sweet breeze of romanticism, the message of liberation is transformed into disappointment, for an unveiled labyrinth that has not led to any beneficial effect. Oil on canvas, Alte und Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
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