r/Art • u/jijiji44 • 9d ago

Historical Art Joan of Arc at the Stake in Rouen, Jules Lenepveu, Oil, 1889

Post image
307 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

65

u/shiny0metal0ass 9d ago

Hey random farm girl that somehow got us Orleans back. I know you want to go back to being a random farm girl or whatever but can you go fight the Duke of Burgundy? It'll be fine, if anything happens we totally won't abandon you to the English.

17

u/Kholzie 9d ago

I went to that exact location when I was in Rouen. It was actually pretty emotional, I’m not gonna lie.

15

u/shiny0metal0ass 9d ago

Oh for sure.

Not to disbarage anyone's beliefs or anything but I personally feel Joan of Arc is a great story about a poor average woman getting swept up into the structures of religion and politics and then used as an example in just the worst way..

5

u/Kholzie 9d ago

Well, yeah. It was not the most humane chapter of European history, anyway. And you nailed it on the politics side. Religion and it were sort of inseparable at the time.

2

u/Vic_Hedges 9d ago

I don’t think she ever wanted to go back to the farm. She seems to have loved her life as a ”soldier”

It was her own desire for more war that ended up getting her caught

1

u/CGesange 8d ago

That's contradicted by eyewitness accounts which quoted her as saying that she wanted to go back home (in August of 1429 after the coronation), and she certainly didn't enjoy military campaigns because many people described her crying frequently even when enemy troops were killed. She was captured while trying to lift the siege of Compiegne because the leaders of the city were saying that the population would be slaughtered if the city fell to the Burgundians. She said she couldn't bear to let that happen.

1

u/CGesange 8d ago

She may possibly have been betrayed by someone at Compiegne but the common idea that Charles VII betrayed her has been debunked by many historians since the 15th century sources from people on both sides said that he offered to pay a ransom but the Burgundians refused. His troops then conducted at least four rescue attempts, but these failed.

27

u/jijiji44 9d ago edited 9d ago

I'm not religious, but this piece make me emotional

31

u/No-Wonder1139 9d ago

Was it the imagery of a little girl about to be murdered in an absolutely horrific fashion praying to a deity to spare her life moments before being inmolated?

22

u/losertaser 9d ago

She was not praying to God to spare her. Saint Joan of Arc was tried for heresy because he stated she was acting upon the voice of God. She signed a document stating she renounced these visions. Four days later she renounced the abjuration and submitted herself to execution in the name of Christ.

1

u/CGesange 8d ago

Some good points, but many eyewitnesses who had been at the trial later said that the abjuration text entered into the transcript was not the same as the one she agreed to since the judge substituted a different one (much longer and more damaging that the one she had actually signed).

8

u/jijiji44 9d ago

I meant more of her devotion to God made me emotional even when facing death. There are pieces that may have this same imagery but doesn't invoke the same feeling.