Joan Of Arc Essays (1603 words) - Jules Bastien-Lepage, Joan Of Arc

Joan Of Arc In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City the painting Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage hangs in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. This Piece is rather large and was done with oil paint on canvas, its dimensions being approximately eight feet tall with a width of ten feet. When walking toward Bastien-Lapages painting, its size and realism grabs ones attention, and then holds it while this scene of Joan of Arc seems to take place right before ones eyes. The corridor where the painting is displayed is part of the museums permanent collection. The gallery is composed of many sculptures with paintings placed between them; almost all of the work is French and done sometime in the 1800s. This long and wide corridor has Ionic styled pillars at each end, and all together the subtle architecture goes nicely with all the different art work displayed. Bastien-Lepages painting is placed third from the end of this corridor and fits there nicely, although one might expect it to see it somewhere else for the amount of attention it receives. To the right of the painting is the wall sign that states the artists life span, which was 1848 to 1884, along with the following brief history: After the Province of Lorraine was lost to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the French saw in Joan of Arc a new and powerful symbol. In 1875 Bastien-Lepage, a native of Lorraine, began to make studies for a picture of her. In the present Painting, exhibited in the salon of 1880, Joan is shown receiving her revelation in her parents garden. Behind her are Saint Michael, Margaret, and Catherine. Joan appears to be the focus of the painting as she stands in the foreground and to the right. Her image is almost life size, and, along with an enormous amount of detail that has been used, she appears very lifelike. Joan stands with her head and shoulder leaning slightly against a tree and her eyes looking upward. Her left arm is stretched out away from her body and holding the end branch of a young flexible tree, while her right arm is at her side with her hand cupped against her dress. The smoothness in the contours of her skin and the ways the textures are represented on her clothing, with the folding and shadowing, are all done well. The use of the different shades of color for the skin tones, clothing, and their shading show Bastien-Lapages skill in capturing this naturalistic image. Behind Joan, in the upper left of the painting, the three saints are hovering above the ground. St. Michael is positioned perfectly upright with a majestic look as he is holding a sword away from his body horizontally with both hands. His body is covered with a golden body suit of armor except for his head, which is turned toward Joan and has a full halo behind it. Margaret and Catherine are both wearing white silky and flowing veils on their heads. There are white flowers in their hair, and both have golden circles over their heads as halos. Their dresses are also flowing and painted with light pink and blue. Margaret is positioned upright, her hands clasped by her chest, and her head to the side looking towards Joan, while Catherine is bent over with her head facing down and both hands over her face. Bastien-Lepage showed his ability for capturing the naturalistic look of Joan, but he did not use this ability to its full extent with the saints. The colors used on the saints are not quite as vivid as with Joan. Michaels golden body armor and silver sword are not really shining at all, and all three halos seem to be placed there without any real signs of glowing. The shadowing and detail work in their clothing and skin are also not quite as life like as Joan. All together the three images of these saints appear to be somewhat hazy. The rest of the painting is a landscape of Joans garden with the back wall of her house in the distance, and in front of the saints is a stool and wooden frame that thread