The Departure of Jeanne d'Arc
Entrance of Jeanne d'Arc at OrleansThese two romantic paintings of the national icon Jeanne d’Arc are by the French painter Jean-Jacques Scherrer (1855-1916). Scherrer did them in the 1870s after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, when he left his beloved Alsace which was lost in the war.
So Jeanne is here a kind of patriotic consolation and hope for a victory in the future.
Scherrer is not my favourite artist, but I love the paintings. This is because Jeanne d'Arc seemed to be adopted by people for their own, contemporary purposes:
ReplyDeletethe Catholic Church,
French ultra-nationalists,
anti-British people,
anti-German people,
left wing feminists,
right wing conspiracy theorists, transvestites and every other political and religious cause.
As a historical figure Jeanne was nearly forgotten, and it was Napoleon who discovered her as a national icon against the English.
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