Study of two flying figures for the wall painting The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and the Muses for the Lyon museum

The studies were made for a triptych of wall paintings (Visions of Antiquity, Christian Inspirations and Rhône and Saône) for the Lyon museum. The study for the Visions of Antiquity captures figures with a goat in a landscape with a rocky coast evoking the Mediterranean atmosphere of the legendary Golden Age of pagan Antiquity. His study of flying figures with lyres, the Muses Euterpe and Thalia from The Sacred Grove, which he did for the staircase of the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon is a more specific work. Lyon-born Puvis de Chavannes translated his feelings into a mythological theme, shifting it to the present to render it more personal.