Lourdes. Imploring before the grotto.

item details

NameLourdes. Imploring before the grotto.

ProductionJean Forain; artist; c, 1912-13; France

Classificationprints, etchings, works on paper

Materialspaper, ink

Materials Summaryetching

Techniquesetching

DimensionsPlate: 200mm (width), 268mm (height)

Registration Number1952-0003-152

Credit lineGift of Sir John Ilott, 1952

Overview

Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931) was a leading French painter, printmaker and illustrator of the 19th and 20th centuries. He exhibited with the Impressionists at the invitation of his mentor and close friend, Edgar Degas, in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th exhibitions (1879-1886). His ballet scenes show his awareness of Degas, while his courtroom scenes, exposing the cruelties of the legal system, owe much in their concept to Honoré Daumier. In turn, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec looked up to Forain. His illustrations particularly to books by his friend the notorious symbolist/decadent J.K. Huysmans brought considerable acclaim, while his bitingly witty cartoons for Le Figaro and Le Courrier Francais made him a household name. Additionally, his portrait lithographs of Auguste Renoir and Ambroise Vollard are described in his Grove Art Online entry as ‘brilliant’. The same source notes how ‘he resumed etching in 1902 but changed his subject matter to concentrate on religious and courtroom subjects of great drama and deep feeling, expressed with bravura technique’. Together with Huysmans, he regained his lost religious faith and this underpins the power of early 20th century etching/drypoints such as this one, Lourdes: Imploring before the grotto, Calvaire (2015-0056-2) and several other prints in Te Papa's collection.

Forain comes over as a Christian and as someone with strong compassion for ordinary people in this powerfully moving image of desperate parents in prayer, holding their crippled child in their arms. Note the child's crutch beside them. This is perhaps the most affecting portrayal of the grotto/shrine of Lourdes in art: unfortunately there is no shortage of kitsch alternatives! Forain’s use of negative space is particularly modernist and eloquent. Less is more. We can barely see the grotto itself - this is where the teenage Bernadette of Lourdes beheld her famous vision of the Virgin Mary in 1858 and the rest is history - but we do see the parents' faith and sense the victim's suffering. Although undated, it is probably contemporary with a series of etchings of scenes relating to Lourdes and its pilgrims which are dated 1912-1913.

See: Wikipedia, 'Jean-Louis Forain', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Forain

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2018