Oedipus and the Sphinx

The nude hero Oedipus leans in boldly to confront the Sphinx, who crouches in shadow on a rock, to answer her deadly riddle, a fallen victim's foot visible at the lower edge as warning. Ingres models the muscular figure with cool precision and crisp contour, setting human reason against the lurking monster. Now in the Louvre, Oedipus and the Sphinx shows the Neoclassical master applying his immaculate draftsmanship to ancient myth - the calm, probing intelligence of the man poised against the dark, riddling menace of the beast in a tense, frozen exchange.