paintings by David and Raoux would have to begin by pointing out that, although both painters dealt with scenes from classical antiquity, they did so almost 100 years apart. As a result, each artist brought to whatever story he was illustrating the preferences and styles of his own generation, not to mention a hint at the political situation in which he found himself.

Raoux (born 1677, died 1734) lived during The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement associated with the 18th century. Paris was, along with London, a center for the growing belief that human reason "could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world." (WSU Web site) Particularly, the thinkers of The Enlightenment wanted to be free of the constraints of religion as practiced then, and of the domination of society by an hereditary aristocracy. (WSU Web site)

Raoux, in his painting Orpheus and Eurydice,...
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