Heloise and Abelard (1879) by Robert Bateman (1842–1922). Oil on canvas; 20 x 24¼ inches (50.8 x 62.2 cm). Private collection.
The inspiration for this painting are the letters of Peter Abelard and Héloïse d'Argenteuil, who lived in France in the late eleventh and early twelfth-century, and are taken from Abelard’s autobiographical writings the Historia Calamitatum. Abelard was born into a wealthy family in Brittany, was determined to become a scholar, and therefore studied philosophy and religion.
In 1115 Abelard met Heloise who was living in Paris with her uncle Fulbert. He was then thirty-seven years old and an established teacher of philosophy and theology while she was in her early twenties and already known to be a brilliant scholar. He offered to teach her philosophy but the two fell in love, he seduced her, and she became pregnant. He moved her to his family home in Brittany where she gave birth to a son named Astrolabe. The two married in secret and Abelard then sent her to a convent in Argenteuil for her protection.
Her uncle took his revenge by having a band of men break into Abelard’s room where he was mutilated and castrated. Abelard thereafter decided to enter religious life in a monastery and persuaded Heloise to enter a nunnery. The two continued to correspond and their letters are full of philosophical and theological musings and reminiscences concerning their love for one another. In Abelard’s final letter he told her that they should stop writing to each other and instead focus on being faithful and trying to please God. Bateman may have known their story from Alexander Pope’s poem “Eloisa to Abelard” first published in 1717. One stanza of this poem reads:
“Canst thou forget that sad, that solemn day,
When victims at yon altar's foot we lay?
Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?
As with cold lips I kiss'd the sacred veil,
The shrines all trembl'd, and the lamps grew pale:
Heav'n scarce believ'd the conquest it survey'd,
And saints with wonder heard the vows I made.
Yet then, to those dread altars as I drew,
Not on the Cross my eyes were fix'd, but you:
Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.
Come! with thy looks, thy words, relieve my woe;
Those still at least are left thee to bestow.
Still on that breast enamour'd let me lie,
Still drink delicious poison from thy eye,
Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press'd;
Give all thou canst—and let me dream the rest.
Ah no! instruct me other joys to prize,
With other beauties charm my partial eyes,
Full in my view set all the bright abode,
And make my soul quit Abelard for God.”
This tragic tale of doomed lovers would no doubt have appealed to Bateman because of some parallels to his own relationship with his great love Caroline Howard. The clearly defined foreground of the painting is crowded with objects that are obviously rich in spiritual and symbolic significance. When the painting sold at Christie’s in 2009 the auction house experts had these comments on the painting:
“On the face of it, the subject and its treatment hardly seem to fit. The famous star-crossed lovers, their story vying in pathos with those of Hero and Leander, Paolo and Francesca or Romeo and Juliet, lived in late eleventh and early twelfth-century France. Bateman's figures seem to belong to sixteenth-century Venice. Their setting recalls some Italian Renaissance painting, if not indeed the work of Capability Brown, while Abelard, if that is who he is, has glamorous, matinée-idol good looks. It is hard to see this curiously modern figure as one of the greatest schoolmen of the Middle Ages. However, Bateman's work is notoriously eccentric and often refers to the Renaissance masters, whom he had studied on visits to Italy and Spain in the early 1860s…Moreover the picture is replete with symbols that seem to confirm the traditional identification of the subject. It is true that the significance of the Roman numerals inscribed on the sundial [X.XII.III /CARPE/DIE/M] has so far proved elusive, but the presence of the stone figure of Cupid underlines the amorous relationship between the two protagonists, while a host of other symbols point to themes that are central to the tragic story of Heloise and Abelard, notably redemption and the conflict between spiritual and carnal love. They include the Horacian injunction 'carpe diem' (redeem the day) inscribed on the sundial; the wilting sunflower (the vanity of earthly glory?), the dog (faithfulness and self-sacrifice?), the birds and butterfly (the soul and its search for spiritual fulfilment?), the apples (carnal passion and knowledge?), the rose-bush (love, both physical and spiritual?), and the discarded flute (source of heavenly music but also a spent phallus?). Here again, incidentally, Bateman is not afraid of anachronism. The image of Cupid holding a sundial is borrowed from Dante, who was born more than a century after Abelard's death. The Roman de la Rose, in which rose symbolism found such popular medieval expression, also post-dates the lovers' demise, while the ailing sunflower looks even further forward, seeming to anticipate the sick rose of William Blake.”
There are similarities between this painting and Bateman’s earlier May Madrigal of 1869. The image also appears related to earlier wood engravings by Bateman, the first to the poem “Fetters” published in The People’s Magazine in April 1873 on page 256, and the second to illustrate “Summer” in A Plea for Art in the House by W. J. Loftie published in 1876 on page 41. If Bateman intended this painting as a remembrance of his love for Caroline Howard it was based on a memory from years previously. Caroline was married to the Reverend Charles Wilbraham, but he died in 1879, the year this work was painted. Perhaps the motto carpe diem (redeem the day) inscribed on the sundial that features Cupid is a clue to Bateman hoping his love for Caroline will find redemption and they will finally be allowed to marry which did, in fact, happen in 1883.
This does not appear to have been a popular subject for Victorian painters although Edmund Blair Leighton exhibited Abelard and his pupil Heloise at the Royal Academy in 1884, no. 658.
Bibliography
“Victorian and British Impressionist Pictures Including Drawings and Watercolours.” London: Christie’s (June 3, 2009): lot 22.
Kavanagh, Amanda. “Robert Bateman: A True Victorian.” Apollo CXXX (September 1989): fig. 4, 176.
“A Medieval Love Story – Abelard and Heloise.” Naure History Heritage. (14/02/2018). Web. 17 February 2023.
Last modified 17 February 2023