Hermit and Angel in a Landscape 1745 - 1793

Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin created this etching, Hermit and Angel in a Landscape, at an unknown date. The print presents us with a vision of religious devotion and its rewards. We can see the visual codes of eighteenth-century French religious art on display, in the form of an angel descending to a prostrate hermit. The cross held in the hermit’s hand and the barely-there halo are shorthand to signify both piety and divine encounter. The imagery evokes Counter-Reformation values that emphasize personal religious experience. Consider the social conditions that might produce this image: during the eighteenth century, the French monarchy's control over religious institutions was weakening, so the Church’s leaders would encourage displays of faith. Art historians can research how artists like Lavallée-Poussin were contracted to provide these images, in an effort to maintain some level of influence in an increasingly secular world.