# Montaigne and Tasso [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [RICHARD, Fleury-François]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 130 x 100 cm ## Commentary Torquato Tasso \(1544-1595\) was once wildly popular, quoted by philosophers, emulated by poets, and a source of inspiration to painters and composers. Even his sad and tormented life was an obsession for the romantics, inspiring a play by Goethe, a poem by Byron, a painting by Delacroix and a symphonic study by Liszt. He suffered from mental instability throughout his career, obsessing over his poems. It was a favourite subject for the romantics - the artist, a victim of his own prolific imagination, hounded into insanity. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne \(1533-1592\), the sober, 16th-century philosopher, apparently met Tasso in an asylum near Ferrara in 1581, according to a fascinating passage from one of his essays. Fleury-François Richard took his inspiration from this essay. ## Related artworks - [Death of the Prince de Talmont]() - [Valentine of Milan Mourning her Husband, the Duke of Orléans]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()