A new painting from the MU Museum of Art and Archaeology was installed in the Grand Reading Room on August 11. Information about the painting is below.

David Ligare (American, b. 1945)
Dido in Resolve, 1989
Oil on canvas (89.6)
MU Museum of Art and Archaeology
Gift of the MU Student Fee Capital Improvements Committee

David Ligare is a California based artist who was commissioned to create a contemporary classical painting for the Museum of Art and Archaeology to serve as a link between the ancient and modern objects in the Museum’s collection.  Ligare’s painting represents an episode from the Aeneid by the Roman author Vergil. 

According to the story, Dido, Queen of the North African coastal city of Carthage, met the Trojan prince Aeneas when he stopped in Carthage after the end of the Trojan War.  Aeneas fell in love with the queen, and the two spent the following winter together.  Later, Mercury, the messenger of the gods, visited Aeneas and urged him to travel to Italy to found a new Troy (which later became the Roman Empire).  Choosing not to disobey the gods, Aeneas departed and abandoned Dido.  Distraught over her lost love, the queen built an enormous pyre to burn all of Aeneas’ leftover possessions.

Ligare pictures Dido in her palace as Aeneas’ ships depart Carthage.  As smoke from the pyre rises in the background, the queen resolves to end her life. Dido eventually threw her own body onto the pyre, cursing Aeneas as she committed suicide.

Ligare makes visual references to archaeological objects in the painting, representing, for example, a classical lamp similar to those found in the Museum’s collection.  The artist also shows Dido seated in profile, a position that recalls the traditional poses of deceased figures in ancient Greek funerary monuments.  Ligare’s frame, moreover, resembles the structures that surround these ancient monuments. These funerary references allow the artist to foreshadow Dido’s death with the formal elements of the painting.