The Lunatic of Étretat
Artist
Hugues Merle
(French, 1823 - 1881)
Date1871
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions60 1/8 x 39 1/8 in. (152.7 x 99.4 cm)
Overall, Frame: 73 x 52 x 6 in. (185.4 x 132.1 x 15.2 cm)
Overall, Frame: 73 x 52 x 6 in. (185.4 x 132.1 x 15.2 cm)
ClassificationsEuropean art
Credit LineMuseum purchase with additional funds from Landmark Communications
Object number2009.13
Collections
On View
On viewLabel Textfar left Léon-Jean-Bazile Perrault French, 1832–1908 The Orphans, 1888 Oil on canvas Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2062 Hugues Merle French, 1823–1881 The Lunatic of Étretat, 1871 Oil on canvas Museum purchase with additional funds from Landmark Communications 2009.13 Compare these two paintings. Léon-Bazile Perrault’s seductive image of a beggar-girl holding a baby (at far left) continues a tradition of 19th-century realist art that stresses the plight of the poor and dispossessed. Hugues Merle mines the same tradition (seen here), yet he transforms the sentimental image into one of utter, even hysterical, despair. The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log! Is Merle’s “lunatic” mourning the loss of a child, or mad with longing for one? With no clear answer visible, we are left to ponder her fate. The figure’s anguish is a hallmark of Romanticism, a style that emphasized images of suffering, madness, and death. These images were often thinly veiled allusions to broader social suffering or political upheavals. For example, Merle painted The Lunatic in 1871, the same year that France lost the Franco-Prussian War. Could his dark image mirror the broader national mood of political loss and desolation?
