25 Works, July 21st. is Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #198

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Filial Piety (The Paralytic), c. 1763
Oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Denis Diderot was an unofficial art adviser to Catherine the Great of Russia. It was no coincidence when the painting he praised was purchased directly from the artist by Catherine’s agents and shipped to Saint Petersburg, where it remains. This peculiar mid-18th century French painting-genre of the “edifying family tableau” was exactly suited to Diderot’s taste for secularized moral uplift. More on this painting

In more general terms, filial piety means to be good to one’s parents; to take care of one’s parents; to engage in good conduct, not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one’s parents and ancestors; to show love, respect, and support; to display courtesy; to ensure male heirs; to uphold fraternity among brothers; to wisely advise one’s parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness; to display sorrow for their sickness and death; and to bury them and carry out sacrifices after their death. More on Filial Piety

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (21 August 1725–4 March 1805) was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting…

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10 Works, Today, April 1st, is Saint Mary of Egypt’s Day, With Footnotes – #89

Russian icon of St. Mary of Egypt
Kuopio Orthodox Church Museum

Mary of Egypt (is revered as the patron saint of penitents, most particularly in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Saint Mary, also known as Maria Aegyptiaca, was born somewhere in the Province of Egypt, and at the age of twelve she ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. Here she lived an extremely dissolute life. In her Vita it states that she often refused the money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven “by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion,” and that she mainly lived by begging, supplemented by spinning flax…

 

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