Paetus and Arria 1770

Benjamin West painted "Paetus and Arria" using oil on canvas in the late 18th or early 19th century. Here we see a scene from ancient Roman history: Arria stabs herself to show her husband Paetus that it is not painful to die. The painting comes out of a Western tradition of history painting, which aimed to ennoble viewers through morally instructive scenes from the past. West’s work invites us to meditate on the politics of marriage and the significance of suicide. The Neoclassical style gives the scene a kind of universal, timeless quality. In its own time, the painting would have been seen as highly progressive, as it challenged traditional notions of women's roles. As historians, we want to look at the historical sources that West would have drawn on, as well as the artistic conventions and political debates that shaped his work. It's important to see art as something that is deeply contingent on social and institutional context.