{{Short description|Painting by Aimé Morot}} {{italic title}} thumb|250px|''The Good Samaritan'' (1880) by Aimé Morot '''''The Good Samaritan''''' (French: ''Le Bon Samaritain'') is an oil in canvas painting by Aimé Morot, from 1880. Although large (268 cm x 198 cm) it was originally larger, but the artist reduced it in order to focus more directly on the life-sized figures at the centre of the composition.<ref name="PM">{{cite web |title=The Good Samaritan |url=https://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/en/oeuvre/good-samaritan |website=petitpalais.paris.fr |date=31 March 2016 |publisher=Paris Musées |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref> It was exhibited at the Salon of 1880, where it won a medal of honour.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Monnier |first1=Édouard |title=La Bretagne artistique, pittoresque et littéraire Volume 1 |date=1880 |location=Nantes |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lh8tAAAAYAAJ&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritaine&pg=RA1-PA41 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref><ref name="PMP"/>
==Subject== The subject of the painting is the Parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Saint Luke. The wounded man rides on the Samaritan's donkey, apparently still not conscious, while the Samaritan himself holds him up. The Samaritan, an elderly man, has a face wrinkled by age and poverty that nevertheless exudes kindness and gentleness.<ref name="CONT">{{cite book |title=Le Contemporain revue d'économie chrétienne · Volume 53 |date=1880 |publisher=Bureau d’Abonnement du Contemporain |location=Paris |pages=1104–1107 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vLABNg2E79IC&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritaine&pg=PA1106 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref> Heavily influenced by Spanish art of the 17th century, Morot depicted the subject with a severe realism.<ref name="PM"/> It was one of a number of paintings on Christian themes selected for the 1880 Salon,<ref name="CONT"/> many of which were characterised as having anatomical precision and scientific naturalism.<ref name="Fae">{{cite book |last1=Brauer |first1=Fae |title=Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1443863704 |pages=46–9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jWBJDAAAQBAJ&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritain&pg=PA48 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref>
==History== The work was acquired as a gift by the Petit Palais from Otto Klaus Preis in 1995.<ref name="PM"/> It was displayed as part of ''Illusions of reality - naturalist painting, photography and cinema 1875-1918'' at the Van Gogh Museum (2010–11) and later at the Ateneum, Helsinki (2011). It also formed part of the ''Caritas'' exhibition at the Musée de Picardie in Amiens (2014–15).<ref name="PMP">{{cite web |title=Le Bon Samaritain |url=https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/petit-palais/oeuvres/le-bon-samaritain-0#infos-secondaires-detail |website=parismuseescollections.Paris.fr |publisher=Paris Musées |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref>
==Reception== His vigorous and striking style was much appreciated by his contemporaries - Marie Bashkirtseff wrote in her diary: “This is the painting which has given me the most complete pleasure in my entire life. Nothing jars, everything is simple, true and good”.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bashkirtseff |first1=Marie |title=Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff Volume 2 |date=1887 |publisher=G. Charpentier |location=Paris |page=189 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=17A4AQAAMAAJ&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritaine&pg=PA189 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref> The ''Revue Alsacienne'' said that it was hardly possible to imagine a more successful rendering of the human body than Morot had achieved with the injured traveller.<ref name="RA">{{cite book |title=Revue alsacienne Volume 3 |date=1880 |publisher=Berger-Levrault et cie. |location=Nancy |pages=311–2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A33NAAAAMAAJ&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritaine&pg=PA311 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref> Several commentators compared Morot's work to that of Léon Bonnat, particularly in the attention both artists paid to rendering the colours and ugliness of human skin.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Du Seigneur |first1=Maurice |title=L'art et les artistes au Salon de 1880 |date=1880 |publisher=Paul Ollendorff |location=Paris |page=85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aDoGAAAAQAAJ&dq=morot+le+bon+samaritaine&pg=PA85 |access-date=31 December 2022}}</ref>
One criticism was that Morot had dressed the Samaritan so that he looked “like an Arab coming back from the market at Constantine.<ref name="CONT"/> Another was that by focusing so closely on the figures, Morot's painting lacked completeness of composition, so that the complete narrative of the rendered scene could not be understood clearly.<ref name="RA"/>
The theme of compassion in this and several other paintings in the 1880 Salon may be related to the contemporary discussions about the rehabilitation of the Communards and the need for the Third Republic to go out if its way to redeem those who it had until recently regarded as enemies.<ref name="Fae"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Samaritan, The}} Category:1880 paintings Category:Oil paintings on canvas Category:Paintings based on New Testament parables Category:French paintings Category:Paintings in the Petit Palais