ATALA PORTÉE AU TOMBEAU

Why did the picture of the young woman Atala, an aged bearded man (death's reflection?) holding her up patiently by soft white shoulders while a young man (her lover?) holds onto her by the legs as if he will never let her go, seem so profoundly sad to me one hot summer's day at the Louvre museum in Paris? Overwhelmed by the crowded rooms and an art collection that needs weeks to do it justice, and not having bought the expensive catalogue, this one painting remains in memory. Atala's illuminated lifeless form has a luminous clarity of innocence and serenity against the backdrop of death's presence; as if her life has never made so much sense as in this moment just before entombment away from the living, as if the tenderness of the painter's moving brush has perfectly captured, with instinctive comprehension, a multitude of emotions impossible to put into words.

On the internet I discover that there are others who have been stopped in their tracks by the breathtaking Atala, about to be entombed and taken from those who hold her, and yet immortalised on an artist's canvas forever for us.

Les histoires de Mélo

"Je ne suis pas une grande fan de peinture, et j'avoue que je n'y connais pas grand chose, mais voici le seul tableau qui ait réussi à vraiment m'émouvoir. Il est exposé au Louvre et a été réalisé par Girodet.

Je ne sais même pas quoi dire, comment exprimer ce que je ressens devant cette toile... Elle est à la fois emprunte d'une profonde tristesse, mais également d'une grande sérénité quand on regarde le visage de la jeune femme.C'est un mélange entre la souffrance et la douceur, le jeu de lumières est également magnifique. Les vivants restent dans l'ombre et souffrent alors que la défunte entre dans la lumière et semble reposée et sereine... "

DISCOVER THE LOUVRE

The tale behind Atala's immortal slumber...

"A young woman torn between love and religion

In the sunset, in a cave, the old hermit, Father Aubry, is supporting the corpse of the half-caste Atala. Chactas the Indian, stricken with grief, clings passionately to the young woman's knees. Atala, torn between her love for Chactas and the vow she took to remain a virgin and a Christian, committed suicide. With a crucifix clutched in her hand and the drapery of her dress clinging to her bust, she is both pure and sensual. After their all-night vigil, the two men will bury her in the cave. A verse from the Book of Job is carved on the cave wall:

"When it is yet in flower, and is not plucked with the hand, it withereth before all herbs."

Girodet drew his subject from Chateaubriand's (novel) Atala, or the Loves of Two Savages in the Wilderness (1801), set in America in the 17th century."

www.louvre.fr , French paintings

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