The painting received mixed reviews from critics when it was exhibited in 1880. Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc straddles these two, incorporating both hyper-realistic details and an impressionistic landscape. The first and slightly older movement focused on realism and upheld the tradition of participating in the Salon the second emphasized impressionism and a break from the Salon culture. In late nineteenth century France there were two important diverging art movements. He was intrigued by hypnosis and contemporary early studies of psychology, which heavily influenced his depiction of Joan of Arc’s vision. Bastien-Lepage was one of these prominent artists, from the region of Lorraine. After the painting was exhibited in the Salon, it was bought by American collector Erwin Davis, who then gave the work to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1889 (where it has remained since).
The exhibition was open to the public, and frequented by the middle and upper classes. In this yearly exhibition, prominent artists' work from the past year would be on display together, usually with works filling the entirety of the gallery’s walls. The painting was originally shown in the Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Bastien-Lepage has painted Joan of Arc as naturalistic, she- along with several of the tree branches around her- appear as if in sharp focus, while the rest of her surroundings are more abstracted, almost blurred. However, while most imagery of the Annunciation presents Gabriel and the Virgin together, in Bastien-Lepage’s painting Joan of Arc is the sole central figure, with the saints only faintly visible in the background. Like Mary, Joan of Arc is depicted receiving her divine vision in the middle of spinning. The composition of the painting evokes the biblical Annunciation scene, in which the Archangel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she would become the mother of Jesus. However, she uncharacteristically does not face the saints speaking to her instead, she stares out of the picture frame, her gaze haunting and mysterious.
A diagonal gray line connects them to her, signifying the vision the three are giving to her. Catherine mystified her interrogators (as Joan of Arc would later do during her trials). Margaret was the patron of peasants, and St. Michael was the patron saint of France, St. These were well-known saints during Joan of Arc’s lifetime. Three translucent apparitions float above the spinning wheel, representing Saints Michael (in armor), Margaret and Catherine. To her left there is a spinning wheel and overturned chair, suggesting the dramatic and arresting nature of her vision. She is barefoot, wearing a traditional peasant dress, and holding the branch of a tree. But as a cross-dressing female prophet, Joan was treated with suspicion, particularly by the Church, and she was eventually condemned to be burned at the stake.īastien-Lepage’s painting depicts her at the beginning of this narrative, receiving her vision from the saints in her parents’ garden in Domrémy, France. Her campaign in Orléans was notably successful and credited with turning the tide of the war.
Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was a peasant girl from Lorraine who asserted that she heard the voices of saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine urging her to don men’s clothing, help restore the French monarch and drive the English out of France by fighting in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Jules Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc (1879), or Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices, depicts the eponymous figure receiving a vision.