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Legend has it that the story took place in the 7th century BC, thus seven hundred years before the Almighty decided to send His Own Son to Earth to assess the situation more closely. It won't be a good idea. Not that I wish to jinx Him, God forbid. He knows and perhaps has already forgiven me.
The current capital was in conflict with the town of Albalonga over atavistic-territorial issues. To avoid yet another war, it was preferred to delegate three brother twins for each city, who would challenge each other to a duel with swords. The Horatius family for Rome and the Curiatii family for Albalonga. After a clear supremacy of the latter, the last of the Horatii, with a ploy as abhorrent as it was cunning, namely fleeing and surprising impalement, will prevail over the three Curiatii, forcing Albalonga to annexation into Rome.
Jacques-Louis David, a neoclassical artist and, subsequently, official painter of Napoleon, inspired by "Horace", a tragedy by the French playwright Pierre Corneille, very trendy at the time, decided to bring to canvas an episode that would prove fundamental to connect the first to the second act of the play. The Oath of the Horatii.
To understand the structure of the work, let's imagine that David set up the representation on three imaginary stages, effectively distinguished by the three arches in the background. Premising that there is little room for feelings other than tragedy, reading from the left, on the first stage, the backbone of the entire scenario is showcased. The three brothers, three "bundles of nerves", three flourishing saplings with roots well planted in the ground, observe the contracted big toes of the soldier farthest back. That vigor emanating from the hand of the central soldier clutching tightly the side of the legionary closest to the viewer's eye, almost wanting to conquer the metallic surface of the armored band with his fingers. And the well-accentuated peroneals of the latter, his left arm wielding the spear decisively. Arms stretched towards the swords like three growing branches. The extension of the triceps is maximal, almost wanting to touch the blades, beyond any possibility.
On the central stage, the father acts. An old trunk with still sturdy bark despite the weight of the years, which seems to materialize in his slight downward flexion, though voluntarily dictated by the act of highlighting the swords. On the last stage, the one on the right, the still life. The ensemble of suffering women, reduced to a falling mass of relaxed drapes, just like muscles made dense by the total lack of reactions, except for the delicate move to bring a few fingers towards the face by inertia to support the flowing tears.
The scene is absolutely illuminated, charged with warm and brilliant colors, vivid, despite the tragic context, which furiously clashes with the dark background infiltrating as it surpasses the arches. The theater wings, dark, soulless, cold colors outlining a strange sense of insecurity. Here we are now, but once we pass the arches? Will we return?
On the emotional plane, David shows, in a totally tragic environment, no less than three sentimental dimensions in evident contrast with each other. Let's imagine that pathos is regulated by a scale. The left pan holding the three brothers, while structurally it is the most resistant, the most massive, therefore heavy, at the emotional level, that solidity dissolves. That unaware lightness that will sweep them away. The soldiers' pride focuses only on the swords, the tool of victory. Those daring eyes look at nothing else. It makes them empty, light, that unconsciousness that doesn't want to leave room for reality when aiming too confidently, with ostentatious mastery, uninterceptable fearlessness, those swords that will pierce them.
The fulcrum, the gauge needle is obviously dictated by the father, with that slight flexion backward, eyes turned to the sky wanting to eliminate from his view those weapons that will soon be stained with the lives of his children. The father knows that it is unlikely they will all return home, indeed he does not dare to look at them in an attempt to postpone as much as possible that drama he feels already written inside, as if he wanted to already remember them alive even though they are in front of him. And nothing is more expressive than that sacrificial gaze of a wise man, barely concealing a vein of pain, the omen of a sad fate. Eyes wide open and hopeful, invoking the gods of Olympus not to scourge the young sons' existence with death.
Inexorably, the needle can only incline towards the full pan, the heavy atmosphere that descends on the women. Whether they are mothers, sisters, or wives, they are soaked in the deepest pain, convinced of the defeat and made lifeless by the most sinister thoughts. Abandoned to tears, no force seems able to lift them, not even the strong but incredulous gaze of the child still under protection.
...they brought home their remains in the flags, tightly bound so they appeared whole...
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