We trundled off to the Art Gallery of Ontario on the weekend to see the exhibition Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre before it closes on September 26. The exhibition features work by painters across a few centuries that include Ingres, David, Delacroix, Degas, Blake, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard and more. If truth be known though, we went to see a particular painting, Jacques Louis David’s 1786 Oath of the Horatii.

The painting is pre-French Revolution. It depicts the three sons of Horatius swearing on their swords, which are held by their father. They are vowing to defend Rome to the death. What admirable patriotic duty to the state and all that jazz. We had studied this painting, or I should say images of this painting in art history classes back in our University days. The Oath was presented as a paradigm of the Neo-Classical period, and back in those days it was a reminder to me how much I was attracted to Romanticism instead.

Going to the gallery, I realized that while I could describe from my memory what was going on in the painting, I couldn’t recall a great deal of detail. In fact I didn’t even know how big the painting was. When you study paintings using slides or books, it’s easy to lose context. We don’t see the painting on a wall and we tend to have no sense of scale, even if we read the sizes.

I can recall two instances when I was quite taken by the size of a painting. One was on seeing a Salvador Dali painting I had studied. I knew the image at a glance, but I never thought of the size of the painting. It was way smaller than I had imagined it would be. The other instance was upon seeing Picasso’s Guernica when it was hanging at the Modern in New York. Pictures of this painting in books don’t begin to do it justice. I recall walking up the stairs at the Modern, turning, and seeing Guernica, 11 feet tall and close to 26 feet wide. It stopped me in my tracks.

I digress. I should say, going back to The Oath, that it is a fantastic work, even if it isn’t my cup of tea, so to speak. I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to see it up close and personal. In fact the whole show was really well conceived and presented.

While we were at the AGO, I was reminded that they also have a stunning permanent collection these days, in particular the Thomson collection. If you visit Toronto, I would say that collection is in the must see category.