The Lunatic of Etretat, Hugues Merle (1871
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The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log! Is Merle’s “lunatic” mourning the loss of a child, or mad with longing for one? With no clear answer visible, we are left to ponder her fate. The figure’s anguish is a hallmark of Romanticism, a style that emphasized images of suffering, madness, and death. These images were often thinly veiled allusions to broader social suffering or political upheavals.
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