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Some Notes on "The Pardon in Brittany" by Dagnan-Bouveret

WHEN PASCAL-ADOLPHE-JEAN' DagnanBouveret (1852-1929), the French naturalist painter, exhibited The Pardon in Brittany (Figure 1) at the Salon of 1887, it met with almost universal acclaim. When the picture was included at the Exposition Universelle two years later, it was among the works that won the artist a medal of honor. Often praised was Dagnan's success in revealing the true Breton character.2 In fact, some of the figures depicted in the painting are not based on Bretons at all, and other aspects of the work might also have surprised Dagnan's contemporaries, if they had known of them. The cool, silver-gray light employed by Dagnan in the painting reveals a solemn procession of people exiting the doors of a church and wending their way around the corner of an exterior wall toward the viewer. Most hold long, slender, lighted white candles. The women wear elaborate, starched white headdresses and collars, and the men carry round black hats and wear baggy knee breeches and long, fitted vests. The procession passes by two seated figures, their backs to the viewer and dressed in ragged clothing, who beg for alms by extending small plates. The setting of the painting is limited to the walls of the church and a patch of bare ground, which concentrates attention on the figures of the participants in the procession, on their costumes, and especially on their faces. Pardons are religious events that have been held for centuries in various parts of Brittany, at which indulgences for remission of sins are granted. The ceremonies generally include a mass followed by a procession around the church, which is the part of the event that Dagnan has chosen to depict here. Beggars are apparently a common sight. Pilgrims arrive from throughout the region and can be identified by the details of their costumes, which vary from parish to parish;3 participants and spectators even come from other parts of France. In Dagnan-Bouveret's day Brittany was a popular destina-