My Dear Children

Every day for six months, visitors to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington had asked to see "the Joan of Arc pictures", and had been disappointed. The room in which Maurice Boutet de Monvel's six great paintings hung was closed for repairs. By the time it reopened this week, gallery officials were convinced that the paintings, donated by the late Senator William A. Clark of Montana, were among the most popular in its collection.

The man who made them was a prosperous and beloved illustrator of French children's books (Filles et Garc,ons; Nos Enfants'), but by no means a famous artist in his own time. Only gradually has it become clear that Boutet de Monvel has cinched his own special place among the immortals of art, by modestly slipping through the gate that many more gifted painters try, and fail, to force.

He first painted Joan's story in a picture book designed to make better patriots of French youngsters. "Open this book, my dear children," he wrote in 1896, "with piety, in memory of the humble peasant girl who is the patron saint of France . . . Her story will tell you that in order to conquer, you must believe you will conquer. Remember this on the day when your country will have need of all your courage." In 1911, he finished the six Joan paintings.

Boutet de Monvel, the proud and gentle product of an age that now seems almost as remote as Charlemagne's, died in 1913, just before history presented some of his readers with the day he had in mind. "He took a long time dressing," one of his sons remembers, "and was always elegant, with a bow tie, spats, silk hat, a flower in his lapel, and always a cane."

He lived elegantly too, in an old stone house near Nemours, southeast of Paris. His hobbies were shooting, and long walks with his children. After the walks he would persuade them to pose by giving them paper weapons and toys he made.

In his easygoing way, Boutet de Monvel spent an enormous deal of research on his work. His studio was piled high with authentic costumes for the children and servants to sweat in, while he painted them (he never even sketched without models). Later, all this was to be a boon to Hollywood. When Producer Walter Wanger and Director Victor Fleming were making plans for Ingrid Bergman's Joan of Arc, they found tips for both costumes and settings in Boutet de Monvel.

The Joan paintings are as rich in detail as the film, but they maintain a heroic, friezelike directness and a lightness of touch that the $9,000,000 Technicolor production seldom matches. Hollywood borrowed, but could not beat, the Corcoran's Boutet de Monvel.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.