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Gari Melchers

Joan of Arc

oil on canvas

30 x 23 in.

Gift of Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge

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Painter and muralist Gari Melchers was born in Detroit, the son of a wood carver and sculptor who gave him his first drawing lessons. At seventeen, his father sent him abroad to study at the Dusseldorf Academy in Germany.  He also studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He became an expatriate when he lived in Egmond, Holland for sixteen years, sharing a studio with the American artist George Hitchcock. The people of Holland inspired his work and were his primary subjects.  In 1909 he settled in Weimer, Germany, but returned to America at the start of World War I.  Melchers made his home at “Belmont,” near Fredericksburg, Virginia where he continued to paint in a naturalist style mingled with impressionism, using thick impasto, a bright palette and strong colors.

In Joan of Arc, Melchers chooses a peasant girl to become the martyred saint.  In her simple dress the young girl is surrounded by a field of sheep. A delicate halo suggests her spiritual calling, while her staff and blanket evoke a more earthy profession.  Melchers was interested in depicting the ordinary lives of average people, but often used peasants to create biblical subjects in contemporary settings.

Reference

Gari Melchers, Diane Lesko, Esther Persson.  Gari Melchers: A Retrospective Exhibition, University of Washington Press, 1991. ISBN: 1878390007