La Bénédiction de la Mer, 1872. Oil on canvas, 705/8 x 953/4 inches (179.5 × 243.3 cm). Collection of Museums Sheffield: Graves Art Gallery, accession no. VIS.661.
La Bénédiction de la Mer, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873, is one of Legros’s largest and most impressive paintings. It shows a priest blessing the sea in the background, followed by additional priests and two young acolytes. To their left is a group of women dressed in white carrying religious banners and a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child. In the foreground is a gathering of women and children, likely the families of sailors away at sea. The greatness of this picture, despite its slight faults, was recognized by the critic of The Art Journal:
There is very little work in the exhibition of the character seen in A Legros’ large picture in Gallery No. IX. Here the art is steadfast and patient - not over eager for effect, but enduringly valuable by virtue of its strength and honesty of purpose. These are the very qualities not frequently discoverable in the present Academy. Enough cleverness and some trace of poetic feeling are visible among the products of other painters, but Mr. Legros stands almost alone in his thoroughness of realization and in the sincerity with which the least important things are manifested on the canvas. English painting has need to regard carefully this habit of fidelity, which it has frequent temptation to neglect. So long as the taste of the public remains uncultivated, the gift of careful realization will be too little esteemed, and superficial cleverness valued at too high a price. Mr. Legros’ work tends to the correction of this fault. His picture this year is called ‘La Bénédiction de La Mer’ (981), and represents a company of devout peasant-women kneeling in the presence of a procession of priests advancing towards the sea. The painting of flesh and garment is strong and accurate, and the drawing highly accomplished. And yet with these undoubtedly great qualities, the picture misses any sort of poetic influence. The bounding lines of the composition attain to no subtlety of grace, the carefully chosen colours fail of imaginative harmony. Such a picture must be valued for its rare workmanship, for the unflinching realism of the result, and for the high protest it affords against the vices of negligent execution. Viewed in this way, it holds a unique place in the exhibition, and could ill be spared from the walls. Mr. Legros, however, has a right to complain of the very bad position into which the painting has been thrust. Surely it would not be difficult to name several large pictures which should have made room for this. [237]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum was equally appreciative of the fine qualities of this picture: “Mr. Legros’s picture, La Bénédiction de La Mer (981), is of a different kind: solemn, sober, earnest, and poetical; thoroughly executed, even to hardness; passionate with all its reticence and self-restraint; devout in its expression and sad in it’s colouring. The scene is on the sea-shore: a priest, attended by banner and relic-bearers, blesses the sea; the fisher-folk, mostly women, with their back towards us, fill the foreground. This is a work which deserves to be studied” (700).
Bibliography
“Exhibition of the Royal Academy.” The Art Journal New Series XII (1873): 236-41.
Stephens, Frederic George. “Fine Arts. The Royal Academy.” The Athenaeum No. 2379 (May 31, 1873): 699-702.
Last modified 12 November 2022