How to Read Paintings: Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage
A beautiful image that tells the story of a French heroine
The painting shows a young woman dressed in peasant clothes, caught in a moment of contemplation. She is stood barefoot, her toes clenched, among the plants and trees of a rustic garden. Behind her is a spinning loom and beside it an overturned stool. A narrative begins to emerge, of the young woman having suddenly abandoned her chores for a moment of reverie. She gazes beyond the thicket of trees, her blue eyes wide and vivid with expectation. Her cheeks are flushed red and her hand holds the branch of a tree as if to steady herself.
The artist, a French painter by the name of Jules Bastien-Lepage, gives us an image of longing and anticipation. But what exactly is the young woman thinking? What is it that has pulled her so magnetically from her work at the spinning wheel to gaze off into the far distance?
A clue comes in the form of the three figures that float semi-transparently behind her in the garden. Their faces are half-covered by tree leaves, and their forms blend like smoke into the patchwork of brushmarks that forms the…
