A native love story set in North America provided the inspiration for this painting by the French artist Girodet. The Entombment of Atala had a profound effect on me when I first saw it as a teenager in the Louvre Museum.
I was especially moved by the inscription on the wall of the cave which is easily discernible in the large painting, but barely visible in most reproductions.
J’ai passé comme la fleur.
J’ai seché comme l’herbe des champs.
Translated, it means ‘I have withered like the flower. I have dried up like the grass of the fields.’
The ephemeral connection between humans and grass blew me away.
Especially when we’re young, we have a tendency to think that we will live forever. As we age, we begin to take more notice of the change of the seasons and realize that old age and death eventually come to us all.
The bloom of spring becomes synonymous with the bloom of youth. By the time we hit middle age, it becomes quite apparent that we are in the late summer of life, and that we too will eventually dry up and wither like the grass in the fields.
Yet every season in both nature and life offers a beauty of its own. August days reveal the simple elegance of grasses on the landscape.
The Foxtail Barley shown at left is one that I find especially pretty. However, it can be deadly if it finds its way into the hay meant for farm animals, as its tiny barbs are known to cause respiratory and digestive problems.
Despite its beauty when in bloom, grass serves its greatest purpose once it begins to dry and go to seed. It’s a comforting message of hope for those of us who wonder at times if the best of life might already be passed.
All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.
~ Isaiah 40:6
For more information on Chateaubriand’s early 19th century story of Atala and Chactas, see the Wikipedia post on Atala.
For more information about the painting, see The Entombment of Atala at the Louvre Museum.
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This is a beautiful post, Amy. Autumn is my favorite season, and a good thing, too . . .
Such wondermous thoughts and words, Amy…summer is definitely my favorite season though I find beauty in them all. Even the loooooooong winters here. And as I get older, I try to find beauty in each of my own individual seasons. Dwelling in the present, remembering both the joy and the sorrow of the past and looking forward with anticipation to whatever the future holds.
Beautiful post with beautiful photos.
A beautiful and thoughtful post. These thoughts meet with my own of late.
Those words “All flesh is grass” just set me to shivering. I am enjoying your posts more and more and more as the year progresses. And the photos lately seem to be getting more and more beautiful!
Thanks, once again for a beautiful and insightful post. Pondering the passage of time and transitions is what we are here for, to see, to care, to enjoy.
Thanks also for the beautiful shell, it arrived yesterday and cheered me greatly.
I love Autumn too Gerry. It’s usually a long beautiful season here in Nova Scotia.
Cindy, thank you for adding your wondermous thoughts too 😉
Your use of that word always makes me smile.
Grace and Bella, thank you for your comments. Bella, I am always amazed at how much bloggers find themselves on the same wavelength.
Thanks Kathy. I feel a lot more comfortable taking photographs than I did when I first started keeping this journal. Practice will do that 🙂
Robin, that’s great that your shell got there in one piece! I’m so glad it cheered you. Wonderful!
What a deeply moving painting… What is the story behind ‘The entombment of Atala’? Can you tell us?
Reggie, here is a plot summary from Wikipedia of the novella by Chateaubriand on which the painting by Girodet was based:
At the age of seventeen, the Natchez Chactas loses his father during a battle against the Muscogees. He flees to St Augustine, Florida, where he is raised in the household of the Spaniard Lopez. After 2½ years, he sets out for home, but is captured by the Muscogees and Seminoles. The chief Simagan sentences him to be burnt in their village.
The women take pity on him during the weeks of travel, and each night bring him gifts. Atala, the half-caste Christian daughter of Simagan, tries in vain to help him escape. On arrival at Apalachucla, his bonds are loosed and he is saved from death by her intervention.
They elope and roam the wilderness for 27 days before being caught in a huge storm. While they are sheltering, Atala tells Chactas that her father was Lopez, and he realises that she is the daughter of his erstwhile benefactor.
Lightning strikes a tree close by, and they run at random before hearing a church bell. Encountering a dog, they are met by its owner, Père Aubry, and he leads them through the storm to his idyllic mission. Aubry’s kindness and force of personality impress Chactas greatly.
Atala falls in love with Chactas, but cannot marry him as she has taken a vow of chastity. In despair she takes poison. Aubry assumes that she is merely ill, but in the presence of Chactas she reveals what she has done, and Chactas is filled with anger until the missionary tells them that in fact Christianity permits the renunciation of vows. They tend her, but she dies, and the day after the funeral, Chactas takes Aubry’s advice and leaves the mission.
Such a beautiful, sad tale. No wonder Chactas looks so heartbroken, cradling her body so tenderly.
Gorgeous poetic post.
Thanks Shelagh 🙂
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