The burial of Manon Lescaut by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret

 Hello to all the lovely creatures out there!

In today's post we will be talking about a little different thematic in the art world, a painting inspired by literature: "The burial of Manon Lescaut" by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret!

The burial of Manon Lescaut - Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (circa 1878)

Dagnan-Bouveret's painting Manon Lescaut was exhibited at the 1878 Salon and was taken from Abbe Prevost's 1730's novel and was the artist's first public success, earning him a third-class medal. 

Here Manon's distraught lover, Des Gourieux, is digging his beloved's grave and has resolved to follow her in death. Manon's tragic demise followed a duel between the nephew of the governor of Louisiana and Des Gourieux who, wounded in his arm (one can see some blood has seeped from uhder the crude bandage) and believing he had killed his opponent, hastened to Manon so they could escape New Orleans together. The young couple fled into what the novel's author, Abbe Prevost, describes as the "desert" near New Orleans but tragically, Manon died, whether from exposure and exhaustion, or some unknown malady, we are not told.

This dramatic episode is not quite the end of the tragic story of Des Gourieux and Manon Lescaut; even though he has lost her, he was destined to be saved and return to France, only to find his father had died from sorrow at his son's disgrace and flight. For the reader, the novel's moral was ambiguous and somewhat shocking. This beautiful young couple, passionately in love, had fallen from grace to crime, murder and prostitution leading to prison. Their flight to America may have been a chance to start over again, but even then, tragedy intervened. Nonetheless, despite many whom they wronged, all is somehow justified by their love, portrayed as a noble emotion that excused everything, however monstrous their conduct. It is this particular portrayal in the novel that scandalised many and led to the book being twice banned and burned, in 1733 and 1735.

Dagnan-Bouveret's The burial of Manon Lescaut was both a history subject and a naturalist work. Manon lies dead on the sand, the painting of her body's oblique angle requiring considerable skill in a partial foreshadowing, while Des Gourieux looks down in sorrow, pausing from the laborious work of digging her grave with his bare hands. The sandy "desert" ends with a rocky outcrop at right and a low mountain range behind, above which some distant crows are ominously flying towards the viewer.

I've recently been into more paintings inspired by literature specifically. Although there are many paintings depicting themes from mythology and folklore, literature paintings started being more popular around Enlightment Period. This particular painting is such an example, especially since it is inspired by a novel that was quite shocking for the era it represented. Themes like the one portrayed here, were exceptionally not discussed or depicted because of the scandal it could create in both common people and higher society. However, with time, they became as popular as mythological themes which I find quite interesting to explore.

I hope you found this painting and the story behind it as interesting as I did, I am also thinking about starting the novel as well because of this! Drop a recommend in th comments if you know any other painting inspired by a very ''scandalous'' novel you may know!

As always thank you for reading and I will see you in a next post!

xoxoxo