Today was my last visit to Joan of Arc for a while. Over the next few posts, I’ll explore why this painting is interesting.
I’ll start with the fact that Joan is not the typical painting that I like. Joan does not boast the color, the treatment of light, and illusion of three-dimensional space I typically prefer. I like the color of Rothko, the light of Vermeer, and the illusion of three dimensional space of much of the Italian Renaissance.
Bastien-Lepage’s work offers none of the above. And yet I find this painting fascinating. Let me try to explain.
Scale
The painting is big—about 8 foot square. This is why I long ago learned to not judge artworks by even the best photographs. You need to be there in person. When I visited the painting multiple times over the weekend, i found myself standing close; about 5 feet away. While one gets to see a lot of details closer up, you lose the gestalt from perceiving the painting as a whole.
I returned to the painting on Monday afternoon and it was a quite different experience without the weekend crowds. I love going to the same museum multiple times on the same trip. Just as a reproduction in a book or website rarely does justice to art; so too does seeing art while crowded by dozens of other tourists. On this quiet Monday, I could see the painting from a new vantage point. Standing 15 - 20 feet back, I could see the picture as a gestalt, a whole. From that perspective, I could see that the painting has two halves, side by side.