Joan of ArcHer Image in France and America
Published by GILES in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Publish Date — November 2006 (UK and USA)
Dimensions — 80 pages, 191mm x 229mm (9 x 7 1/2 in.), landscape
Illustrations — 70 colour and 30 b&w illustrations
Hardback price — UK£12.95/US$24.00
ISBN — 1-904832-19-9
ISBN — 978-1-940832-19-5
Book Details (pdf) — Joan_of_Arc_ai.pdf
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Sales Points
Presents major new research on the history and wider context of the portrayal of Joan of Arc in France and America
Draws on a huge range of carefully researched images of Joan of Arc, many never seen before, from museum, libraries and archives in France and the U.S.
An invaluable resource for those interested in the cultural legacy of Joan of Arc
About the Book
Joan of Arc: Her Image in France and America celebrates the cultural legacy of a medieval French heroine who led the armies of her nation to victory against the English, who was tried on charges of heresy, and who was burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431. Two decades after her death, her trial was reopened and the court reversed the verdict. But it was not until the pinnacle of her popularity, nearly 500 years later, that the Catholic Church canonized her.
Born in Domremy, France, around 1412, Saint Joan endures as one of the most famous people of the Middle Ages, and her extraordinary life has engaged generations of historians, writers, artists and—most recently—Hollywood film producers, many of whom have used her image to stir an astonishing array of passions. This highly illustrated book, published on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, is the first to explore the history of Joan’s image both in France and the United States. For several centuries representations of Joan have reflected the historical contexts in which they were created, and have been used to promote a huge variety of political, cultural and religious views. These range from icons of martial ascendancy and nationalist unity to paragons of humble piety and maidenly purity, supporting both the power of the people, and the divine right of kings.
Leading art historian, Nora Heimann, explores the history of Joan’s image in France from the 15th century to 1920. Heimann demonstrates that where Joan’s image appears— from public monuments to bottles of perfume—it is nearly always tied to the most timely political events and debates often revolving around the fluctuating relationship between Church and State.
Laura Coyle, in her essay A Universal Patriot: Joan of Arc in America during the Gilded Age and GreatWar, examines Joan’s image in America in the later 19th and early 20th century, from the Gilded Age through to the period immediately following World War I. Drawing on works as wide-ranging as Mark Twain’s apologist biography, the Ringling Brothers enormous “Spectacles”, U.S. War Bond posters and Hollywood movies, Coyle shows how these images of Joan eminently suited American concerns about self-reliance, feminism, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. Coyle’s essay also includes the history of the commissioning of the Gallery’s remarkable series of paintings representing events from Joan of Arc’s life executed by the French artist and book illustrator Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel between 1903 and 1911, which were commissioned by Senator William A. Clark. Boutet de Monvel’s illustrated and immensely popular deluxe picture book Jeanne d’Arc (1896) was the precursor to these paintings, and was published in both France and America. The authors assess the reasons why de Monvel’s images of Joan were so widely admired on both sides of the Atlantic.
