My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
The Lunatic of Étretat
| Artist | Hugues Merle |
|---|---|
| Year | 1871 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60 1/8 × 39 1/8 in. (152.7 × 99.4 cm) |
| Location | The Chrysler Museum of Art , Norfolk Virginia |
Merle generally painted serene and peaceful portraits of women and their children, so when he shared the above with the world, it was quite a shock. Instead of a loving mother embracing her child, we see a lunatic woman holding a log.
Did she lose a child and with said child, her grip on reality? Was she unable to have children despite a desperate desire to do so? We do not know. All that we have to go on is her bedraggled appearance and her haunting mad eyes.
The painting might be a bit more than it seems though. I definitely recommend the review below:
I like the interpretation that this is a political painting. She isn’t just a woman with an individual grief, but instead she represents France itself in 1871, coming off both a military defeat to the Prussians that year, but a century of chaos in the leadup. But we don’t know what this all really means because the artist never told us.
If something about this woman rings a bell for you, it might be that you’re familiar with the TV series Twin Peaks. There is a character in the franchise, known as “The Log Lady” who bears a striking resemblance to our log lady above (she carries a log around everywhere she goes.) It seems likely that the show drew some inspiration from Merle’s piece above.
