Evariste Vital Luminais
Mermaid
Oil on canvas
11 3/8 x 21 ¼ in. (29 x 54 cm.)
Private collection
A mermaid is a marine creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria. Mermaids can be benevolent or beneficent.
Évariste Vital Luminais (13 October 1821 – 10 or 15 May 1896) was a French painter. He is best known for works depicting early French history and is sometimes called "the painter of the Gauls".
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Gaul Returning from Hunting/ Gaulois revenant de la chasse, c. before 1848
Oil on canvas
Height: 60.5 cm (23.8 in); Width: 50 cm (19.6 in)
Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes
The scene of the painting Gaulois returning from the hunt contains some anachronisms, especially in the clothing: braie and tight gagging. This is a return from the hunt and not a war scene, the helmet is more of a necessary accessory to characterize the Gaul than a warrior attribute.
The same freedom appears in the canvas En Vue de Rome (below), where the representation of the helmets and the shield on the left is very fanciful. The Celts' adventure in Italy struck the imagination of artists very early .
The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples of Continental Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period. The area they originally inhabited was known as Gaul.
They were spread across the lands between the Seine, Middle Rhine and upper Elbe. By the 4th century BC, they had expanded over much of what is now France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, by virtue of controlling the trade routes along the river systems of the Rhône, Seine, Rhine, and Danube. More on The Gauls
Évariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Gauls in sight of Rome
Oil on canvas
Height: 73.0 cm; Width: 100.0 cm
Dunkirk Museum of Fine Arts
By the 5th century BC, the Gauls had migrated from Central France to the Mediterranean coast. Gallic invaders settled the Po Valley in the 4th century BC, defeated Roman forces in a battle under Brennus in 390 BC, and raided Italy as far south as Sicily.
Évariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Fight of Romans and Gauls, c. before 1876
Oil on canvas
54 x 65 cm
Carcassonne Fine Arts Museum
Luminais was born in Nantes into a parliamentary and legal family. His great-grandfather Michel Luminais was an official in the Vendée; his grandfather Michel-Pierre Luminais represented the Vendée in parliament from 1799 to 1803; and his father, René Marie Luminais, represented Loire-Inférieure from 1831 to 1834 and Indre-et-Loire from 1848 to 1849. Aware of his natural artistic talent, his family sent him to Paris when he was 18 to study with the painter and sculptor Auguste Debay. He also studied with Léon Cogniet, a historical and portrait painter whose pupils included Léon Bonnat, and Constant Troyon, who painted landscapes and animals.
Évariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Rout of the Germans after the battle of Tolbiac
Oil on canvas
Height: 130.0 cm; Width: 195.0 cm
Nantes Arts Museum
The Battle of Tolbiac was fought between the Gauls/ Franks, who were fighting under Clovis I, and the Alamanni, whose leader is not known. The date of the battle has traditionally been given as 496, though other accounts suggest it may either have been fought earlier, in the 480s or early 490s, or later, in 506.
Théophile Gautier wrote this account of the battle :“The vanquished multitude presents itself in shorthand to the spectator, and the flight continues out of the canvas: the frightened horses gallop on quagmires, where they rush; the great oxen which drag the baggage carts, mad with terror, throw themselves aside, resisting all the efforts of their conductors, and form, in this human torrent, with the obstacle of wagons, species of islands, around which the crowd foams and swirls, and surmounted by the twisted arms of women in despair. On the horizon, as long as the gaze can sink in, we can see waves of fugitives, where stands here and there, like a whitening wave, a horse which rears up, hit by the francisque or the arrow of 'a winner
The Alemanni abandoned the Lower Rhine and left the Ripuarian Franks alone. More on The Battle of Tolbiac
Evariste Vital Luminais
Girl with dog
Oil on canvas
cm 46X38,5
Private collection
Evariste Vital Luminais
THE INVASION
Oil on canvas
140 x 110 cm ; 55 2/17 by 43 4/13 in
Private collection
Evariste Vital Luminais (French, 1822–1896)
Captives
Oil on canvas
56 x 46.3 cm (22 1/16 x 18 1/4 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Evariste Vital Luminais
The Bounty of War
oil on canvas
39 ¼ x 31 ¾ in. 99.7 x 80.6 cm.
Private collection
Evariste Vital Luminais
The disputed prisoner
Oil on canvas
130,4 x 110,4 cm. (51 3/8 x 43 ½ in.)
Private collection
Evariste-Vital Luminais (Nantes, 1822 - Paris, 1896)
The captives
Oil painting
height 45, width 55.
Museum of the Old Bishopric of Evreux.
Attributed to Evariste Vital Luminais
Communion of Saints
Oil on canvas
10.5 inches x 14.6 inches
Private collection
The communion of saints, when referred to persons, is the spiritual union of the members of the Christian Church, living and the dead, but excluding the damned. They are all part of a single "mystical body", with Christ as the head, in which each member contributes to the good of all and shares in the welfare of all. More on Communion of Saints
Luminais worked in the genre and historical modes. He was among the academic painters who satisfied a social demand for aggrandising, even propagandistic historical works in the early years of the Third Republic, after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. As such, he shared in their condemnation by the advocates of modern art. However, in some paintings, such as The Widow (1865) he foreshadows social realism. He also used a historical dressing to make hunting and peasant scenes more palatable to the Academy.
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Death of Chilpéric
Oil on canvas
Lyon city hall, Louis XIII lounge.
Chilperic (c. 539 – September 584) was the king of Neustria (or Soissons) from 561 to his death. He was one of the sons of the Frankish king Clotaire I and Queen Aregund.
Most of what is known of Chilperic comes from The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. Gregory detested Chilperic, calling him "the Nero and Herod of his time" (VI.46): he had provoked Gregory's wrath by wresting Tours from Austrasia, seizing ecclesiastical property, and appointing as bishops counts of the palace who were not clerics. Gregory also objected to Chilperic's attempts to teach a new doctrine of the Trinity. Although some scholars dispute the extent to which Gregory disliked Chilperic.
Chilperic's reign in Neustria saw the introduction of the Byzantine punishment of eye-gouging. Yet, he was also a man of culture: he was a musician of some talent, and he wrote verse; he attempted to reform the Frankish alphabet; and he worked to reduce the worst effects of Salic law upon women.
In September 584, while returning from a hunting expedition at his royal villa of Chelles, Chilperic was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant. He was buried in the Saint Vincent Basilica of Paris, later incorporated in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés. More on Chilperic
Luminais played an important part in disseminating the iconography of the Gauls; their popular image, with long hair and winged helmets, was developed by historians at this time as part of an examination of French history.
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
The Death of Chram, c. 1879
Oil on canvas
152 x 201 cm
Musée des beaux-arts de Brest, Brest, France
Chram was the son of Chlothar I, a Merovingian king of the Franks, and his fifth wife, Chunsina.
Chram rose in rebellion against his father on several occasions. Following one of these rebellions, he fled with his wife and children to the court of Chanao, the ruler of Brittany. In pursuit of Chram, Chlothar defeated the combined forces of Chanao and his son in battle. Chanao was killed, and Chram, delayed in making his escape by sea because of his concern for his family's safety, was captured. Chlothar gave orders to burn them alive, but Chram was strangled and his body was placed in a cottage, which was subsequently burned. Chlothar reportedly died of remorse later that year. More on The Death of Chram
He also depicted the Franks, whose contribution to French history was then generally underrated in favour of the Gauls. His painting of the Alemannic rout at the hands of the Franks in the Battle of Tolbiac (See above) impressed Théophile Gautier at the 1848 Salon. His Frankish Cavalry in Combat was inspired by reading Chateaubriand.
Évariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Merovingian Princess
Oil on canvas
Anne-de-Beaujeu museum
The Merovingian dynasty was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gaulish Romans under their rule. They conquered most of Gaul, defeating the Visigoths (507) and the Burgundians (534), and also extended their rule into Raetia (537). In Germania, the Alemanni, Bavarii and Saxons accepted their lordship. The Merovingian realm was the largest and most powerful of the states of western Europe following the breaking up of the empire of Theodoric the Great. More on The Merovingian
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Goths cross a river
Oil on panel
Height: 32 cm (12.5 in); Width: 40.5 cm (15.9 in)
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
The Flight of St Winwaloe and King Gradlon, c. 1884
Oil on canvas
Height: 50 cm (19.6 in); Width: 70.5 cm (27.7 in)
Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes
Évariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Fuite de Gradlon/ Grandon's escape, c. 1884
Oil on canvas
200,0 cm ; 310,0 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper
Ys is a mythical city on the coast of Brittany but was later swallowed by the ocean.
King Gradlon ruled in Ys, a city built on land reclaimed from the sea, sometimes described as rich in commerce and the arts, with Gradlon's palace being made of marble, cedar and gold. Gradlon built the city upon the request of his daughter Dahut, who loved the sea. To protect Ys from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by the king.
Most versions of the legend present Gradlon as a pious man, and his daughter, Princess Dahut, as wayward. Dahut is often presented as frivolous and an unrepentant sinner, or, sometimes, as a sorceress.
Dahut steals the keys from her father while he sleeps, either to allow her lover inside for a banquet or after being persuaded to do so by her flattering lover. Dahut then opens the gates of the dikes either in a wine-induced folly or by mistake, believing she was opening the city gates.
The sea inundated the city, killing everyone but the king. A Saint woke the sleeping king and urged him to flee. The king mounted his horse and took his daughter with him. As the water was about to overtake him, a voice called out: "Throw the demon thou carriest into the sea, if thou dost not desire to perish." Dahut fell from the horse's back, and Gradlon was saved. In Le Baz's version, it is Gradlon himself who throws her off on St. Gwénnolé's orders. More on the escape of Grandlon
His paintings on Merovingian topics emphasise the barbaric cruelty of the rulers. Pepin the Short's overthrow of Childeric III with the agreement of Pope Zachary and the deposed king's imprisonment in the Monastery of St. Bertin at Saint-Omer is the subject of his painting The Last of the Merovingians, for which he reportedly used one Jean Marie Dagobert as his model. At the 1883 Salon, the critic Charles Bigot hoped this would indeed be Luminais "last" Merovingian painting.
Évariste Vital Luminais (1821–1896)
Les Mérovingiens/ The Merovingians, circa 1870s -1880s
Alternative title; Gallic horsemen
Watercolor over traces of pencil
26,6 × 38,7 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Merovingian dynasty, Frankish dynasty (AD 476–750) traditionally reckoned as the “first race” of the kings of France.
The name Merovingian derives from that of Merovech, of whom nothing is known except that he was the father of Childeric I, who ruled a tribe of Salian Franks from his capital at Tournai. Childeric was succeeded by his son Clovis I in 481 or 482. Clovis I extended his rule over all the Salian Franks, conquered or annexed the territories of the Ripuarian Franks and the Alemanni, and united nearly all of Gaul except for Burgundy and what is now Provence. More on the Merovingians
Evariste Vital LUMINAIS (1822-1896)
L'Amazone
Oil on cardboard
56 x 44 cm
Private collection
In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a race of woman warriors.
The legendary Amazons were thought to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern-day Turkey near the southern shore of the Black Sea. There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta or Hippolyte. This area is known to have been occupied in the Late Bronze Age by a transhumant group known to the Hittites as the Kaŝka; though they were not directly known to Greeks, modern archaeologists have determined that they finally defeated their enemies, the Hittites, about 1200 BC. According to Plutarch, the Amazons lived in and about the Don river, which the Greeks called the Tanais; but which was called by the Scythians the "Amazon". The Amazons later moved to Terme on the River Thermodon, northern Turkey. More on the Amazons
Evariste Vital Luminais, 1822-1896
Pirates normands au IXe siècle/ Norman Pirates of the 9th Century
Oil on canvas
Musée Anne de Beaujeu, Moulins | France
Luminais died in Paris at the age of 75 and was buried in the little cemetery in Douadic. His native city of Nantes has a street named for him. More on Évariste Vital Luminais
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