Cleveland Museum of Art

Sleep

Jean Bernard Restout

Date

c. 1771

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The tradition of painting nude male figures in a studio setting was the cornerstone of artistic practice, teaching artists to depict the human body in complex poses in order to create larger narratives. However, by the late 1700s, some artists began to see these studies as independent works of art. By adding the wings and the poppies, Restout transformed his study into a more specific subject, and he first exhibited the work in a privately organized exhibition in 1783 under the title of Morpheus, the god of sleep. A source of inspiration for this painting was probably the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses , which describes the god of sleep as living in a cave with sleep-inducing poppies at the entrance.

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