Saint Herbland 1877

Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret painted this image of Saint Herbland sometime during his career in France. The painting draws on visual codes that have become synonymous with monastic life: the simple robes, the rosary, and the book. The artist was working in a period of intense secularisation in France, with the Republican government actively dismantling the power and wealth of the Catholic Church. So this representation of a saint can be seen as an act of cultural conservatism, and a challenge to the anti-clerical politics of the Third Republic. It’s possible that Dagnan-Bouveret was attempting to reassert the significance of traditional religious values within a changing society. Further study of the records of French society at the time – institutional, economic, and political – might reveal more about the artist's social position, and the public role of art during that period.