30 Works, Today, April 28th. is artist Hugues Merle’s day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #117
The Lunatic of Étretat, c. 1871
Oil on canvas
60 1/8 x 39 1/8 in. (152.7 x 99.4 cm)
Chrysler Museum of Art
The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log! The figure’s anguish is a hallmark of Romanticism, a style that emphasized images of suffering, madness, and death. These images were often thinly veiled allusions to broader social suffering or political upheavals. Merle painted The Lunatic in 1871, the same year that France lost the Franco-Prussian War. Could his dark image mirror the broader national mood of political loss and desolation? More on this painting
Hugues Merle (1823–1881) was a well-known painter during the middle decades of the nineteenth century when academic realism and naturalism held center stage in the Parisian art world. His work was acclaimed and eagerly sought out by patrons both in Europe and the United States. His greatest popular successes were won by scenes of maternal affection and childhood innocence.”…