Joan of Arc
Artist: Jules Bastien-Lepage
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 100 x 110 in. (254 x 279.4 cm)
Joan of Arc, the medieval teenaged martyr from the province of Lorraine,
gained new status as a patriotic symbol after France ceded the territory to Germany
following the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). Bastien-Lepage, a native of
Lorraine, depicts the moment when Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine appear
to Joan in her parents’ garden, rousing her to fight against the English
invaders in the Hundred Years War. When the painting was exhibited in the Salon
of 1880, critics praised the expressiveness of the principal figure, but found the
saints’ presence at odds with Bastien-Lepage’s naturalistic style.
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