Thursday, June 24, 2010

Patriotic Icon

The Departure of Jeanne d'Arc

Entrance of Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans

These 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.

2 comments:

  1. 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:
    the 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.

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  2. 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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