The first Monument of Joan of Arc and the Problem of the of the Sacredness of her Image in France in Modern Times

Abstract

The article deals with the history of the first Joan of Arc’s monument erected in Orléans in the late 15^th - early 16^th century. The author analyzes the political circumstances in which this monument had appeared: the results of the Joan of Arc rehabilitation process in 1455-1456, the special role of the French heroine in the liberation of Orléans from the English siege during the Hundred Years war, the influence of Religious wars in France of the 16^th century and of the French revolution at the end of the 18^th century. The author comes to a conclusion that the erection of the first sculptural portrait of Orléans Virgin was due to the active discussion of the sanctity issue of the French heroine.However, the author notes the closeness of the propinquity of this monument to the biblical scene of the Pietà, or Lamentation, in which Joan of Arc was given the role of Mary Magdalene. This ambiguous prototype (of a repentant sinner who became a Saint) was used in Orléans, in author’s opinion, in order to emphasize the dubious attitude to the Hundred Years War’s heroine which was still present in the early Modern Times French society.The author also demonstrates how French artists and sculptors used this iconographic type of the image of Joan of Arc image in the 18^th-20^th centuries and what changes were introduced into it in the course of that time in order to rid the French heroine image from an ambiguous rendition and to approve her role of a formally canonized Catholic Church Saint.