A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day Refusing to shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge
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By Sir John Everett Millais.
"This scene of star-crossed love and religious heroism is set at the beginning of the notorious Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day. Over a period of several days from 24 August 1572, French Roman Catholics led by the duc de Guise slaughtered thousands of Protestants in Paris.
In this scene, we see a young Catholic girl trying to persuade her Huguenot lover to save himself by binding around his arm the white cloth that is to be the Catholic's means of identification. He resists, preferring to die rather than deny his faith.
Millais was inspired by the opera Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer."
I saw this painting in a Van Gogh Museum exposition, in Amsterdam.
I loved it.
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Nice picture. I have to admit that I've never seen it before, but it's typically Millais.
I think you may find that while the ultra-Catholic Guise family (from which came the highly romantic figure of Mary, Queen of Scots) were deeply implicated in the appalling St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre - even Ivan the Terrible in Russia sent in his protests! - the principal blame should be laid firmly at the door of the Queen of France at the time, Catherine de' Medici.
The Pope of the time had a medal struck to celebrate the event; a fact which the present Church would probably prefer to forget...
Incidentally, I've never heard a single note of Meyerbeer's music played. Whilst he was very popular in his day, he seems to have been a sort of 19th-century Lloyd Webber.
Thanks for those interesting informations Finrod! :D It's actually ironic how the greatest representative of a religion that says "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" can carry a symbol of death and persecution, when the Catholics were themselves persecuted by the Romans so many years ago. They don't seem to learn the lesson do they? :P
I admit I didn't know anything about this Massacre, and I forgot to add the link to the page from which I took the text above, (here it is: A Huguenot, ...) but this is one of my favourite things in travelling: not just seing new places and people, but also to discover things, and to be interested in them, that otherwise I would never look twice. I mean, the impact of having that picture right in front of me, is so much bigger than seeing it in a book, with 5x5 cm2; it can't even be compared.
P.S. The painting "Ophelia" was also in that exposition. In fact, it was all about that painting, which seems to be one of his famous painting, but I liked this one, can't tell why. :)
Oh, don't get me started! The religious persecutions around the Reformation caused no end of trouble all over Europe and beyond...
I know about the Guise family through studying the struggle between (Protestant) Elizabeth I and (Catholic) Mary Queen of Scots, the daughter of Mary of Guise.
Ophelia is certainly one of Millais' more famous works, though I haven't seen a copy of it in years.