Contenu du sommaire : Pour une histoire du corps. Péchés, maladie et mort

Representations of saints being tempted are not frequent and concern a few saints only (Anthony, Hieronymus, Benedict), because the painters had to face a paradoxical situation about them: how to picture on canvas the conflict between concupiscence and Christian moral values, or between the Devil's dangerous beauty and the saint's moral beauty, in the framework of art as a means for edification? The confrontation between narratives of temptations and iconography helps us figure out how painters settled the problem, by emphasizing either the pathetic side of human weaknesses, or man's heroic struggle against his own body or the multiform bodies of demons assailing him.

In order to give more clarity to their moral and religious speech that often seemed too obscure, preachers resorted to exempla in their sermons. Those exempla give a description of misdeeds and penalties, merits and rewards, which may have an effect on people's lives here below and in the next world, and how their bodies and souls might be affected. Unlike penitential books and confession manuals, “exemplary” stories do not set precise prices to pay for sins committed. Still, as revealed by a collection of exempla of the 13th century attributed to a Friar of the Bag from southern France, the texts give the faithful an idea of the factors that may be favourable or unfavourable to them.

Drunkenness is one of those misdemeanours the clerics have often been confronted with all along history. The study of theological texts, condemning drunkenness with quotations from the Church Fathers, must be completed by a perusal of casuistry, which examines not only wrongful behaviours, but also condemnation schedules, penance settlements, and the way priests solved problems in everyday life. We discover there a sense of subtleties and a realism that seems to appraise the sinner's awareness and responsibility at least as much as the nature of sin itself.

“Cholera morbus aboard the Melpomène” was a painting commissioned to H. Vernet by the Marseilles' Intendance sanitaire in 1833. In Toulon the frigate of that name had not contaminated the port city thanks to the quarantine. As the last decorating piece for the Council hall, the picture did not give rise to much comment. Although it was not shown at the Art Exhibition, and got a terse welcome in Marseilles, the picture is nonetheless striking in its composition and certain details. Since a cholera epidemic erupted in Marseilles shortly after its completion, the work of art seemed to jeopardize the city's initial intention to renew its confidence to the Administration in fighting the cholera, in comparison with the city's previous fight against the plague: but also the painting must be taken as a reply to Pierre Puget's relief composition facing it in the same hall.

Contrary to received ideas, women hold an important place in sculpted groups everywhere to be found in this great urban cemetery during the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century. In such works redolent of a patriarchal and hierarchical system the woman appears as a wife and most of all a widow, expressing grief and marking bereavement at her husband's deathbed, or in scenes depicting a visit to the grave. As a deceased woman, she may sometimes be represented alone or in couple. More often, she is part of group compositions, such as the “ravished soul”. Some allegories of death and the tendency to feminize angels all contribute to giving the woman a specific place.

Angels hold an important place in the iconography of present-day cemeteries. First as the celestial creature playing the mediator between heaven and earth, as well as the psychopompos leading the “ravished soul” to paradise. The angel with a trumpet, announcing the end of the world, expresses the faith in resurrection of the person who placed the order. The angel may be also the incorporeal double of the deceased person now in the next world and “similar to angels”. In such a case the angel tends to portrait a juvenile. A cherub signals “an angel in heaven”, i.e. a child's tomb. Finally the angel may be the allegoric figure of Christian faith, but also the pagan genie of immortality. The angel in a cemetery is a marker of religious identity, with variable intensity and sometimes with ambiguous undertones.

Along the 19th century, we find physicians more and more frequently at the bedside of the dying and the dead, where they meet priests, traditionally involved in the last rites. Do such encounters result in a competition, even a conflict, or a collaboration? The answer is not clear-cut. Two conceptions are involved in dealing with the pangs of death, which either differ (as in facing the truth) or converge (about soothing the pain). Science even provides theologians with new arguments, for instance by expanding the time of death. But the reification of the dead body amounts to the removal of a sacred aura, which is perceived as a shock in the face of new funeral attitudes, whether they are inspired by the Church or not.