''La Vérité sortant du puits armée de son martinet pour châtier l'humanité'' (English: ''Truth coming from the well armed with her whip to chastise humanity'') is an 1896 painting by the French artist

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academic painting, academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living art ...

Overview

Starting in the mid-1890s, during the final decade of his life, Gérôme made at least four paintings personifying Truth as a nude woman, either thrown into, at the bottom of, or emerging from a well. The imagery arises from a translation of an aphorism of the philosopher

Democritus Democritus (, ; , ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, Thrace, Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an ...

, "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well". (Greek ἐτεῇ δὲ οὐδὲν ἴδμεν: ἐν βυθῷ γὰρ ἡ ἀλήθεια, ''eteêi dè oudèn ídmen: en buthô gàr hē alḗtheia'', iterally"in reality we know nothing; for the truth is in an abyss".) The nudity of the model may arise from the expression ''la vérité nue'', "the naked truth". An earlier painting by , who studied under Gérôme, depicted the emergence of a nude woman from a well, and a crowd running away from her. It was shown at the

Paris Salon The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...

of 1883 under the title ''La Vérité''. The Salon catalogue entry for the work included an epigram credited to a fable by Florian: ''"La Vérité toute nue sortit un jour de son puits; chacun s’enfuyait à sa vue."'' (The naked Truth one day came out of her well; everyone fled at the sight of her). An even earlier painting by

Paul Baudry Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo P ...

, ''La Verité'' (c. 1879), depicted naked Truth sitting placidly upon a well, holding a mirror and attended by a nude infant. At the Paris Salon of 1895, Gérôme showed a painting entitled ''Mendacibus et histrionibus occisa in puteo jacet alma Veritas'' (English: ''The nurturer Truth lies in a well, having been killed by liars and actors''), in which he depicted "naked Truth killed by Falsehood, her body flung into a well and the mirror after her, from which flashes of light are cast as it lightens the dark abyss". At the next Salon in 1896, Gérôme showed ''Truth Coming Out of Her Well''. It has been assumed that both paintings (like a similar, later work by

Édouard Debat-Ponsan Édouard Debat-Ponsan (25 April 1847 – 29 January 1913) was a French academic painter noted for his allegorical works, scenes of peasant life and Orientalism, Orientalist works. Biography Debat-Ponsan was born in Toulouse. His younger brother ...

) were comments on the Dreyfus affair, but art historian Bernard Tillier argues that Gérôme's images of Truth and the well were part of his ongoing diatribe against

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

. In a preface for

Émile Bayard Émile-Antoine Bayard (2 November 1837 – 6 December 1891) was a French illustrator born in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, Seine-et-Marne. A student of Léon Cogniet, he is known for illustrating Victor Hugo's 1862 novel ''Les Misérables''. Caree ...

's ''Le Nu Esthétique'' published in 1902, Gérôme uses the metaphor of Truth and the well to characterize the profound and irreversible influence of photography: Gérôme kept at least one of the paintings. When he died in 1904, "the maid found him dead in the little room next to his atelier, slumped in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and at the foot of his own painting, ''Truth''"—but the source for this anecdote, the biographer Charles Moreau-Vauthier, does not specify which painting of ''Truth''. Since 1978, ''Truth Coming Out of Her Well'' has been part of the permanent exhibition at the Anne de Beaujeu Museum in Moulins, France. In 2012, after the painting traveled to Los Angeles, Paris and Madrid, the museum featured the exhibition ''La vérité est au musée'' ("Truth is at the Museum"), which collected numerous drawings, sketches, and variants made by Gérôme, and by other artists, relating to the painting and its theme. The multiple interpretations of the painting's enigmatic meaning prompted one of the museum's curators to say, "C'est notre Joconde à nous." ("This is our ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, ...

''.")

Gallery (chronological)

File:Paul Baudry, 1879 ca - La vérité.jpg, ''La Vérité'' (c. 1879) by

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

. File:Jules Arsene Garnier--Truth Coming Out of Her Well--1883.jpg, ''La Vérité'' (1883) by , private collection. File:Gerome Veritas 1895.jpg, ''Mendacibus et histrionibus occisa in puteo jacet alma Veritas'' (''The nurturer Truth lies in a well, having been killed by liars and actors'', 1895) by Jean-Léon Gérôme. File:Gérôme - La Vérité au fond d'un puits.jpg, ''Truth at the Bottom of a Well'' (study, 1895) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Musée Georges-Garret. File:Gerome verite lyon.jpg, ''Truth is at the Bottom of the Well'' (1895) by Jean-Léon Gérôme,

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (, ) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was res ...

. File:La Vérité sortant du Puits, E. Debat-Ponsan, 1898, Musée Hôtel Morin (retouched) (cropped).jpg, ''La Vérité sortant du Puits'' (1898) by

, ,

Amboise Amboise (; ) is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. Today a small market town, it was once home to the French royal court. Geography Amboise lies on the banks of the river Loire, east of Tours. It is also about awa ...

References

External links

Vérité est au musée''
��press kit for the 2012 exhibit at the Musée Anne-de-Beaujeu (in French) {{Jean-Léon Gérôme 1896 paintings 19th-century allegorical paintings Allegorical paintings by French artists Nude paintings of women Paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme Paintings in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Oil on canvas paintings

Overview

Gallery (chronological)

See also

References

External links