The significant scene was a key element in historical painting. It was the art of translating the erudition of institutions, societies and ancient morals into image. It portrayed the essence of a period and summarised the characteristics of a civilisation. Jean-Paul Laurens succeeded in giving a mere detail the proportions of an historical event, by giving the episode he was illustrating all the significance of an epitaph engraved in stone. In a single historical character, he excels in bringing to life a whole epoch like the Byzantine Empire in "Saint John Chrysostom and the empress Eudoxia" (1893).
These scenes were used as a base for philosophical and moral teachings of history, so remarkable were his representations of actions and gestures. His representations often illustrate conflicting ideals, opposing human passions, the noblest of feelings confronting brutality and the powers of destruction.
Veritable scene of enlightenment but treated with a remarkable economy of means, "Les Derniers moments de Maximilien, empereur du Mexique" (The last moments of Maximilian, emperor of Mexico) (1882) reveals the moral strength of the archduke of Austria (ephemeral emperor of Mexico) just before his execution. In addition to the virtues and principles Laurens seems to have wanted to portray, this anecdote could also be taken as an illustrated parable. In "La Mort de Marceau" (The Death of Marceau) (1877), the Austrian commander who bows down before the republican general renders homage above all to loyalty and courage and is thus presented to the spectator as food for thought.
Laurens contributed more directly to the republican regime through the iconographic corpus of his commissioned works. Suffice it to mention his decorations at the city hall in Paris: Etienne Marcel and the communal liberties, Anne du Bourg and the condemnation of religious fanaticism, etc. In more conflicting imagery, Laurens even transfigures Sainte-Geneviève, patron saint of Paris, into a secular protector of the capital.
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