Mystique de Jeanne d’Arc: Photographs by Alex Labry
Old Ursuline Convent, New Orleans
Through June 30, 2012
Austin-based photographer Alex Labry grew up in New Orleans and attended Catholic schools. He writes that the presence of Joan of Arc was “nearly ubiquitous” in his life. Could anyone be as devout, reverent, and courageous as the Maid of Orleans? Possibly. Could any other Christian lay claim to having been both convicted of heresy and canonized as a saint? Only Jeanne d’Arc.
Labry’s project, on view at the Old Ursuline Convent through the end of June, is the result of several photography trips to France, beginning in 2005. Over the years, he visited Orléans, Chinon, Reims, and Paris, capturing Saint Joan in armor and often on horseback, frequently veiled in cobwebs or mottled with mildew. Naturally, Labry also includes some shots of New Orleans’s own gilded Joan of Arc statue (donated by Charles de Gaulle in 1959) at the French Market.
Labry shoots with a digital camera but conceived this project as “straight documentary. . . [avoiding] digital enhancements beyond what can reasonably be done in a wet darkroom.” The prints on view at the Ursulines Convent are large format, black and white pigment prints. Labry varies the perspective from acute close-up with no depth of field to long focus shots that capture foreground and background. The result is a survey of Joan of Arc that says as much about the art of monuments as it does about the concept of memorializing.
After an immersive period of research that included history, biography, and fiction, Labry set out to try to discover the real Joan. He ended up with as many questions as he had had when he started. “Joan of Arc was a real person,” he concludes, “[but one] who has been transformed over time into mystical assemblage.” Heretic, saint, mystic, national hero, or feminist icon, it is impossible to separate fifteenth-century Jeanne of Domrémy from a protean figure who is different things to different people. Those who commissioned these statues certainly had their own interpretations and the means to project them incontrovertibly to public view.
Although Labry finds statues of Joan as a supplicant, she is more frequently depicted as the fearless soldier, bearing the banner of France and equipped with “the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11). Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, particularly in the sixth chapter, calls on Christians to battle forces of darkness in spiritual warfare. As the Roman capital of Asia, Ephesus had been since ancient times a site for temples and warfare; modern archaeologists have noted its cemetery for gladiators. It was also an outpost of fledgling Christianity and Paul uses what would have been familiar martial imagery to rally the new disciples.
In terms of Christian symbolism, then, Joan the warrior is an ideal combination. She is protected by “the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:14–17). She is the warrior for Christ, calling on the Lord as her strength and shield (Psalm 28:7). This is not the gentle submission of Bernadette Soubirous.
Of course, many of the artists commissioned to create portraits of Joan of Arc could hardly resist one of sculpture’s most enduring and technically-challenging motifs, the equestrian statue. Again, the Bible offers numerous references to horses in battle, “The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord (Proverbs 21:31). And of course there are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, representing conquest, war, famine, and death.
Labry includes in this exhibition numerous versions of the equestrian Joan. Most of these photos appear to have been taken from the ground with compositions that focus on contours, textures, and details. Casting scars lost to the faraway eye, for example, are brought into sharp relief as are clothing details, armor plate, or the metalwork of mail. One image from 2005 of an armored torso, a purposeful hand gripping the reins, and a rippling horse’s mane distill the essence of this particular interpretation of Joan of Arc.
Over the course of several images of Joan in armor, one even starts to think about the artistic decision of whether to portray Joan in man’s armor or in woman’s armor. Surely, she wore the only armor available, that of a man, rather than having the means to commission her own set of custom-molded woman’s armor. In this way, one interpretation becomes perhaps more historically objective while the other is poetically subjective.
Among some of the most poignant images are those in which cobwebs catch the light. Labry is very good in general with light and contrast, but it must have been especially challenging to catch just the right angle and time of day to capture this effect. A 2005 image of an allegorical Joan in flowing dress and plumed diadem takes on a new interpretation festooned as it is with cobwebs. Even though she wears mail beneath the dress, this Joan carries a lowered sword in her right hand and has her left arm crossed over to raise a banner. The face is insipid and the body language elusive. Surely, the symbolism of Joan the warrior is potent enough without turning her into an outmoded, classically-dated admixture of Minerva and Marianne.
Whether the implacable soldier or the tender girl with eyes raised heavenward, Labry’s views of Joan show that she continues to be a vital and relevant symbol. Regardless of the other ways in which she’s been co-opted, Joan remains first and foremost a Christian symbol. If Labry wants to discover the real Joan, he need look no further.
A few words on the Old Ursuline Convent: Completed in 1753, the convent is the oldest remaining French colonial building in the country. The Sisters of Ursula taught there wealthy creoles as well as black and Indian girls. Today, it houses the Catholic Cultural Heritage Center of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Dating from 1845, St. Mary’s Church adjoins the convent and has especially beautiful stations of the cross in French. The convent with its formal boxwood garden is a fine example of Louis XV architecture at its most austerely beautiful. Behind the convent are gardens with a variety of flowers, herbs (inspired by a nun who became one of the first pharmacists in the nation), and vegetables. A mosaic commemorates Our Lady of Prompt Succor who saved the convent from fire in 1812; inside, another statue of Our Lady, one venerated by Catholics around the world, stands in a niche where she is called on frequently to protect the city. Franco Alessandrini’s white marble statues of important Catholic figures associated with New Orleans decorate the back garden, including Venerable Henriette de Lille, Saint Katharine Drexel, Saint Rose Phillippine Duchesne, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, and Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.
Photography: © Alex Labry, www.labry.net
Text © Leann Davis Alspaugh. All rights reserved.