“Monumentally
poised between photographic precision and painterly inspiration, Jean-Léon Gérôme’s pointing of Saint Vincent de Paul heralded a new era in religious art. The
meticulous detail of the lace of the surplice, the crisp linen of the veil, and
the portrait-like depiction of the saint reflect the reality offered by the newly
invented at of photography, while the powerful composition, with its low
vantage point, was drawn from the tradition of Christian apses and altarpieces.
In 1847,
twenty-three year old Gérôme had just returned from studying in Rome with
his teacher Hippolyte Delaroche, where he had produced both this work and his
more famous The Cock Fight. While in the latter work, preparing for his
debut in the Paris Salon, Gérôme had evoked the idealized era of ancient
Greece, his depiction of Saint Vincent, painted for the Sisters of Charity in Gérôme’s hometown of Vesoul, is
strikingly Roman in its form and composition.
Centered in
the painting and elevated from the ground by a plinth, the figure of Saint
Vincent is reminiscent of the depictions of Christ or the saints common in
Roman altarpieces. Gérôme was deeply influenced by Raphael
during his journey, in particular his Santa
Cecilia, which inspired the composition of this work.
Here, Saint
Vincent stands erect in the center, holding up a small child-an iconographic
theme typical to this saint. The
Solomonic columns (similar to those in Saint Peter’s Basilica) decorated with
Cosmatesque inlay, the triumphal arch opening into a niche, and the two male
figures, one holding a crosier, who emerge from the Caravaggesque background,
summon to mind the grandeur of Christian art in the Eternal City.
In Contrast
to the tenebrous deacons, two women join Saint Vincent in the illuminated foreground. One is a Sister of Charity, a member of the
order co-founded by the saint, and the other is a young noblewoman whose face
is unseen as she turns toward Saint Vincent.
Two forms of charity-donating material goods to help the poor and
donating one’s life to the service of the needy-suggest the virtues so often
painted and sculpted in Roman funerary monuments….
Vincent de
Paul devoted much of his life to the service of the poor and of children in
need, and it was the concrete circumstances of those he met face to face that
inspired him to his life of charity…
The true
witness of Saint Vincent and the reason he bears the title “apostle of charity,”
lies in his ability to recognize the needs of the poor before min and to be
moved with the love of Christ to act on their behalf…
The
Composition itself demonstrates the Christian call to respond to the sight of
Christ in the poor. As the young
noblewoman offers a chest overflowing with jewels and pearls, the poor infant
dispassionately draws forth from it a golden chain. This gentle communication and motion between
the young woman and the child says everything.
She has seen Christ doubly: in the priestly alter Christus of Saint Vincent but also in the face of the small
child. It is to this little one that the
young woman offers her wealth and livelihood, as Saint Vincent did through his
dedication to serving the poor and the orphaned, and to the reform of the
Church."
(Excerpt by Father Garrett Ahlers from
Magnificat September 2017, Vol 19, No 7)
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