Art is the Solution

Joan of Arc Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art Most people in the Western world know the story of Joan of Arc. The young, French peasant girl became a hero of the Hundred Years' War when she spurred the French army on to victory after receiving instructions from various saints through visions. She was later canonized as a saint after her death. Her extraordinary story has made Joan of Arc a popular subject for artists throughout Western history. French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage’s portrait of the young saint is particularly striking. The painting is interesting because it is intended to be realistic. The modern Realist movement was born in the eighteenth century, and Realist painters devoted themselves to capturing everyday life with all its flaws, rejecting the airbrushed, idealized style that characterized other artistic movements. Bastien-Lepage’s painting of Joan of Arc depicts her as a peasant girl, dressed in simple, faded clothes as she stands in the yard of a small, un...