Religious Influences on the art of Jean-Louis Forain

Abstract

One of the most significant characteristics of the development of modern European art has been the comparative absence of religious subject matter.1 The reasons for this are not hard to find, and a gradual weakening of religious inspiration in the representational arts may be traced back to the Renaissance. The result has been to make really modern examples of biblical art seem rare and unusual. The work produced for the Church, though large in quantity, has been uniformly pale and lifeless, and has not attracted the attention of important or progressive artists. It is thus a matter of more than passing interest to find genuinely beautiful and profound pictures dealing with the themes which were once the mainstay of western art. The religious etchings and lithographs of Jean-Louis Forain constitute just such a body of material, and although they have already received the critical acclaim which is their due, little attention has been devoted to the problem of their origin. Exceptions are interesting in any...