Study for Ugolino 1840 - 1875

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux captured this preparatory sketch for Ugolino, presenting a figure of profound despair hunched in upon himself, his face buried in his hands. This pose speaks to the depths of human suffering, echoing through centuries of artistic expression. The image resonates with the Hecuba of antiquity, who, in Euripides' tragedy, collapses in grief, her face hidden as she mourns her children. We see echoes of this gesture in later works; consider the figures in Gustave Courbet's 'Burial at Ornans,' where grief is internalized, faces averted, shoulders slumped in silent agony. Carpeaux taps into a primal wellspring of human emotion, a visual language understood across time. The cyclical return of such symbols underscores the enduring power of collective memory and the subconscious. This pose is not merely a representation of sorrow, but a visceral echo of shared human experiences.