Lourdes, the miracle

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: the miracle, as well as Lourdes: Imploring before the grotto (1952-0003-152).

Forain comes over as a Christian and as someone with strong compassion for ordinary people in this powerfully moving image of  a young woman who rises from her stretcher, raises her arm in triumph, stares heavenwards and appears to fling her crutch aside. Has the famous miracle cure at Lourdes just worked? Such is the power of Forain's art that it would take a hardened, cynical atheist not to hand it to remain unmoved. As the Wikipedia entry, more cool-headedly, states: 'Countless purported miracle cures have been documented there, from the healing of nervous disorders and cancers to cases of paralysis and even of blindness'. Although undated, this impression is almost certainly contemporary with a series of etchings of scenes relating to Lourdes and its pilgrims which are from 1912-1913.

See:

Wikipedia, 'Lourdes', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes

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

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   April 2018