"Jeanne d'Arc" ( French Jeanne d'Arc , Eng. Joan of Arc ) - a picture painted in 1879 by the French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage ( Jules Bastien-Lepage , 1848-1884). Belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York . The size of the picture is 254 × 279.4 cm [1] [2] .
| ||
| Jules Bastien-Lepage | ||
| Joan of Arc 1879 | ||
| fr. Jeanne d'arc | ||
| Oil on canvas . 254 × 279.4 cm | ||
| Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York | ||
| ( inv. 89.21.1 ) | ||
Content
History
The image of Joan of Arc - the "Orleans Virgin", the national heroine of France in the Hundred Years War , became very symbolic in France in the 1870s and 1880s. This was due to the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, as a result of which Lorraine , where Joan of Arc was born, moved away (with Alsace ) to Germany. Sculptors and artists created new sculptural and pictorial images of Joan of Arc. Jules Bastien-Lepage , himself a native of Lorraine, also decided to turn to this image, and in 1879 he painted the picture "Joan of Arc" [1] [2] .
The painting was presented to the public at the Paris Salon of 1880. In the same year, the painting was bought by Erwin Davis from New York , and in 1889 it was transferred to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [1] .
In 1889, the painting was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris [1] .
Description
The painting depicts Joan of Arc in simple peasant clothes, standing in the garden of her parents' house in Domremy . According to legend, it was here that she had a vision of the archangel Michael , St. Catherine and St. Margaret , who told that it was she who was destined to lift the siege from Orleans and expel the invaders. In the picture, the images of the saints are depicted hovering in the air behind Joan of Arc, against the background of the wall of the house.
Reviews
The artist Maria Bashkirtseva , who studied with Bastien-Lepage, was indignant in her diary that the painting "Joan of Arc" at first was not properly appreciated in France. She wrote [3] :
| Joan of Arc was not understood in France, but they worship her in America ... Joan of Arcchef-d'oeuvre for fulfillment and for feeling. We should have heard that only talked about her in Paris. It's a shame! <...> What is exalted art; if not the art that, in front of us, depicting a body, hair, clothes, trees with a complete reality, reaching almost to deceive the senses, at the same time it conveys soul, thought, life! Is Jeanne d'Arc not a work of exalted art, because he presented it to us as a peasant, and not with white handles and not in arms? |
The painting "Joan of Arc" made a great impression on the artist Mikhail Nesterov , who saw her in 1889, immediately before writing the painting " Vision to the Youth Bartholomew ." In his book about Nesterov, Sergey Durylin quoted him as follows [4] :
| I tried to comprehend how Bastien-Lepage could rise to such a height that was completely inaccessible to the outside eye of the French. Bastien-Lepage here was a Slav, Russian with our innermost searches for the depths of human drama ... The whole effect, all the strength of Joan of Arc was in her extreme simplicity, naturalness and that unique and never-repeated expression of the eyes of the shepherdess from the House of Remy ; these eyes were a special secret of the artist: they looked and saw not external objects, but that cherished ideal, that goal, their vocation, which this wondrous girl was to fulfill. |
The writer Arkady Kudrya described the impressions of the artist Valentin Serov from this painting, which he saw at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris [5] :
| And Serov unconditionally gave the palm of primacy to the canvas of the recently deceased Bastien-Lepage "Joan of Arc." The artist avoided the temptation to show his heroine to the famous military leader. Jeanne was portrayed by an unknown peasant girl. She stood in the garden under a sprawling apple tree, dressed in a homespun canvas dress, from which bare feet peered out, and tensely listened to the mysterious voices of the archangels penetrating her soul. Is it really true that she is from above destined for the role of the liberator of France from the foreign yoke? Will she lead the army and lead him to victory over the enemy? The figures of the saints that arose in her imagination were barely outlined in the form of luminous clouds. Jeanne's face reflected a strong and passionate character, her eyes were striking, in which the moment of ecstatic insight of her fate was captured. |
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Joan of Arc, Jules Bastien-Lepage (HTML). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Date of treatment December 6, 2013.
- ↑ 1 2 Joan of Arc, 1879, Jules Bastien – Lepage (French, 1848–1884) (HTML). Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Date of treatment December 6, 2013.
- ↑ Maria Bashkirtseva. Diary of M. B. (HTML). brb.silverage.ru. Date of treatment December 6, 2013.
- ↑ S. N. Durylin. Nesterov (series “The Life of Wonderful People”). - M .: Young Guard , 1965.
- ↑ Arkady Kudrya. Service to beauty, or the Life of the artist Serov . - M .: Rainbow, 2001 .-- 440 p. - ISBN 978-5-05005-208-7 .