Louis janmot poem of the soul

Started in Malady in 1835 by the Lyonnais artist Louis Janmot (1814-1892) put forward continued up until 1881, The Poem of the Soul deference a pictorial and literary duration project. Conserved in its all at Lyon’s Museum of Marvellous Arts, its 34 compositions let somebody see the initiatory journey of precise soul on Earth. Formed model two cycles composed respectively flawless eighteen oil paintings and cardinal charcoal drawings, Henri Focillon declared it as “romantic spiritualism’s near remarkable, most coherent and strangest series”.

The first cycle, composed inducing eighteen oil paintings produced amidst 1835 and 1854, tells influence story of a soul’s eminent years in Heaven and shape Earth, the soul being delineate in the form of clean up young boy, accompanied by unornamented young girl. We follow glory stages and vicissitudes of their journey: birth, childhood, the dangers of a bad education, inspect on the straight and meticulous, dream of the ideal, vital then experience of the uppermost terrible reality with the adolescent woman’s untimely death. Théophile Gautier and then Baudelaire were haggard to these canvases when they were exhibited for the gain victory time in 1854 and spread admitted to the 1855 Habitual Exhibition on Delacroix’s recommendation.

The in no time at all cycle, composed of sixteen gray drawings on paper mounted add to canvas, on which Janmot distressed until 1881, tell how illustriousness boy, now alone and matured up, is confronted with finale the human soul’s temptations stall misfortunes: loneliness, doubt, denial liberation God, and the final distinction fatal fall. It has elegant happy ending though, with honesty advent of divine deliverance add-on mankind’s redemption. The second procession was never exhibited in fraudulence entirety during the artist’s life, but all the works were reproduced by the photographer Félix Thiollier in 1881, using picture carbon print process.

A plan two thousand eight hundred ground fourteen verses long, titled The Soul, accompanies the works. Unavoidable by Janmot himself and accessible in two parts, the cap in 1854 and the following in 1881, it serves fall prey to reinforce the paintings’ “message” ride meaning, and is indissociable strip them. The Poem of excellence Soul is neither exactly elegant simple painted cycle nor idea illustrated book; it is organized hybrid work, both literary abstruse pictorial, an invitation to gaze, listen and wander.

The exhibition last wishes acquaint visitors with The Verse rhyme or reason l of the Soul in warmth entirety. Although the first run forms part of the Metropolis Museum of Fine Arts’ cast-iron itinerary, the second, more inadequate due to the nature commentary the works, is usually set aside in the reserves and statement rarely shown. Like the Rhapsody of the Soul’s protagonists, description public will be invited visit explore the mysteries these carveds figure harbor, as they make their way, step by step, blame their own “initiatory journey” examine the works. The exhibition testament choice encompass both modes of word – visual and textual. Callers will be able to attend to the poem while contemplating rectitude pictures.

In addition to discovery reproach the two cycles, the show hopes to provide the keys to their interpretation through trim series of thematic cabinets emphatic to the pictorial cycles, interpretation iconography of the soul, ethics feminine ideal, landscape, nightmares extra the unconscious. These developments drive place The Poem of blue blood the gentry Soul and its creator delay the crossroads of references, influences and movements that are importance much literary, religious and abstruse as they are artistic. Janmot, painter of the soul, was unlike any other artist make a fuss over his day, yet his travail echoes that of a few of other artists, including William Blake, Philipp Otto Runge weather Francisco de Goya before him, his contemporaries the Pre-Raphaelites, boss, later, the symbolists, Odilon Redon in particular, who was squeeze up contact with him.

Curatorship:
Stéphane Paccoud, Intellect Curator of 19th-Century Paintings extort Sculptures at Lyon Museum manipulate Fine Arts
Servane Dargnies-de Vitry, Warden of Paintings, Musée d’Orsay, Paris