The most striking thing in this gallery of amazing Rodin’s isn’t a Rodin at all; it’s an enormous painting of St. Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage. It’s the kind of thing that totally stops you dead in your tracks. I’m standing there dumbfounded for a minute, then I realize that this is yet another object that Helena had suggested seeing. So totally major points for her for this, and for the caryatid tips as well.

I spend almost forty minutes with St. Joan, sitting directly across from her. Like I said, it’s a gigantic work. No size is listed on the identification plaque, but I’ll estimate eight feet by eight feet square. (In fact it’s 8’4″ by 9’2″.) St. Joan is to the right, looking off-screen further to the right, and up. She’s evidently been spinning and has been interrupted. Her stool at the wheel behind her is lying knocked over. Behind her in the garden, between her spinning and the house, are the three saints, hovering in the air.

St. Joan is so real, standing there. She’s painted in an almost hyper-real style compared to the saints. They almost blend into the house behind them, St. Michael’s head right at the apex of the gable and his armor nearly the same color as the bricks. St. Margaret is to his right, somewhat below him, the angle from his head to hers exactly matching the pitch of the roof. St. Catherine is very hard to make out at all, behind the spinning wheel and some trees, and it’s hard to make out her face at all. Perhaps her face is buried in her hands. It’s hard to say. She could be a martyr holding her own decapitated head, for all I can tell. Maybe depends on which St. Catherine she is.

The right side of the house almost divides the picture exactly in half, separating the saints from St. Joan. And she’s only hearing them, not seeing them, as they are behind her and she’s gazing so intently up and away from them. She so obviously moved, overwhelmed even. She’s grabbing a branch in front of her, maybe even leaning on the tree behind her for support. She dressed very plainly, simple cotton and wool, skirt and blouse and what-do-you-call-it over the blouse, like a cardigan that laces instead of buttons, or an unboned bodice with sleeves.

The picture is an interesting companion for today for the Botticelli, although St. Joan is so much bigger than St. Jerome, which I suppose one can be if you’re oil on canvas versus tempera on wood. Both saints are depicted at important milestones in their lives, although St. Joan is at a beginning and St. Jerome is at an end. Not entirely the end for him, mind you, since he’s got the glorious afterlife awaiting him. And despite this moving beginning moment, St. Joan’s battles against England aren’t going to end well, at least not for her personally.

Joan of Arc, 1879, Jules Bastien-Lepage (French, 1848–1884), Oil on canvas; 100 x 110 in. (254 x 279.4 cm), Gift of Erwin Davis, 1889 (89.21.1)

I find the gallery with Rodin sculptures. Helena had suggested checking out the fallen caryatid. I’m eager to do so, especially because I’m not sure what a caryatid is exactly. Caryatid makes me think of katydid. I’m guessing though that it’s not really some kind of insect, but what would it mean to be a fallen katydid? What precisely would one have to do wrong to be a fallen katydid?

Along the way I spot Rodin’s Cupid and Psyche. It seems to depict Cupid trying to fly away and Psyche trying to hold him down. Perhaps it’s when Cupid bails on Psyche after her sisters have convinced her to shine the lamp on him while he’s sleeping, and a drop of hot oil on his shoulder wakes him up. Here’s how William Adlington translated the scene, in 1566, from The Golden Asse by Lucius Apuleius:

The god beeing burned in this sort, and perceiving that promise and faith was broken, hee fled away without utterance of any word, from the eyes and hands of his most unhappy wife. But Psyche fortuned to catch him as hee was rising by the right thigh, and held him fast as hee flew above in the aire, until such time as constrained by wearinesse shee let goe and fell downe upon the ground.

That’s not quite how it’s unfolding here.

It’s a marble sculpture, maybe 1/3 scale, or maybe Greeks and/or gods were smaller back then. They’re on a rough base, just like a rock really, except there’s also this prong coming up out to the right, on which Cupid casually kind of rests his left hand & wrist. Seems like maybe it’s a necessary structural element for the sculpture. One can see how otherwise his whole arm might snap off in a stiff wind.

The immediate effect is that he’s fleeing and she’s clinging tightly, trying to keep him from getting away. At least that’s the impression given by their relative positions to one another. But they’re not at all tensed up and fighting. Rather, they’re fairly relaxed. As mentioned, his left hand is rather casual on the prong. He’s also hiding his face under his right arm. Her face is hidden too, buried into him, under him, right up to his face. Her left arm is thrown around his torso, but her hand around his back is rather limp. And her right arm is bent double, the back of her hand resting protectively between her breasts. She’s both pulling herself toward him and defending herself from him.

And it’s his face that’s tormented. Hers is fairly serene. She seems like she’s trying to kiss him ever so delicately.

The plaque says that the sculpture is particularly “illustrating the moment of Psyche’s abandonment by Cupid owing to the machinations of Venus.” I’m not sure what moment that would be. Psyche’s whole reason for being there in the first place I suppose stems from Venus’ machinations. But this moment, when he’s fleeing? Wouldn’t that be the sisters’ machinations?

Down at the west end of the gallery I find the fallen caryatid. Two actually, bronze casts. One carrying a stone, the other an urn. Turns out a caryatid is “a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head.” Not an insect at all! I’m in no way disappointed.

They’re not anymore serving as architectural supports, Rodin having extracted them from The Gates of Hell. But once a caryatid, always a caryatid, I suppose. The one under the stone seems a whole lot more burdened than the one with the urn. Much more tormented. And her big toe is rubbed bright, as if people sense her greater anguish and feel a need to touch her, to comfort her.

Very confusingly, the plaques for both caryatids say that they were first modeled about 1881 but that these bronze casts are from 1981. Nineteen eighty-one? A hundred years later, long after Rodin’s death? Are they still Rodins?

I’m on my own Tuesday morning in NYC, while Dawn is in training. So I’m off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I ride the subway from Grand Central to 86th Street, on the 4 Express. Stops only at 59th Street in between. I ride on car 1185, part of the R142 order built by Bombardier for the IRT from 2002 to 2003, replacing the old Redbird fleet from 1958. There are exits at the 86th Street station out to both the east and west sides of Lexington, but there’s a helpful sheet of paper taped to the wall telling me which way to go.

I get to the museum around ten and have to check my backpack. I wait around until ten-fifteen for the free introductory tour. Takes about an hour, making our way from ancient Greece to Rome to 18th century Africa to America 1928 (Demuth’s Figure 5 in Gold) back to 18th century France to 14th century Germany to 16th century Spain back to 18th century France again and finally to Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher from 1661 or so. That’s quite an hour, don’t you think?

I dig all of it, even the Demuth modern piece. I ask the docent a question at the first piece, just about where this particular frieze would have been, like in a house or a public building. Why would someone have made it, I wonder. Who would have wanted it for what purpose? Artistic? Religious? Both? She seems kinda annoyed at me for interrupting her flow, so I keep generally quiet for the rest of the tour. Except at the Demuth when she says that there’s more modern stuff upstairs or somewhere in the museum, including “Julian Hirst’s shark.”

“Julian or Damian?” I ask.

She admits that it’s Damian, although this clearly hasn’t endeared me any more to her either.

On my own for a couple of hours I go looking for some objects that Helena has suggested. On my way out from the Vermeer I notice the one Botticelli that they’ve got here, so I stop at that for a while. It’s The Last Communion of St. Jerome.

The scene depicted takes place in St. Jerome’s bedroom cell where he spent the last decades of his life. If the info plaque didn’t tell me this, I’d have figured that this was in a church. What looks to be like an altar, with palms and crucifix above, is in fact St. Jerome’s bed. I suppose maybe I shouldn’t have mistaken the bedspread for the altar cloth, in that the former here seems to be some sort of fur or animal skin whereas the latter is generally just plain white.

The cell itself is a strangely abstracted place, in that from our vantage point it looks like a three-sided building somewhere outside. The sky seen above the roof and through the windows is solid blue, cloudless, and we see no other landscape features. It’s almost like the whole room is suspended in mid-air. Maybe that helps to enforce the idea of this being the last communion of St. Jerome, like he’s almost already on his way. He’s already no longer of this earth, maybe not quite in heaven yet but clearly on his way there.

There are six figures in the room, St. Jerome included. There are three on each side, facing each other, at the foot of the bed. St. Jerome himself is middle right, facing the priest at middle left, who is holding the communion wafer in his right hand, just about ready to place it on St. Jerome’s tongue. Each man is being assisted, St. Jerome being physically supported by two monks, the priest attended by two altar boys.

Generally the figures are all facing each other, with their bodies turned slightly towards us, so not quite facing but not quite profile. Three-quarters turned maybe. Or perhaps the ballet croisé. St. Jerome’s face is in direct profile, as is the face of the altar boy directly across from him. The priest’s face is almost, just almost, in profile, except for a slight tilt of his head, where we can see the underside of his chin. The tilt really conveys a lot of sympathy towards the saint.

The monk whose head the priest’s head almost touches also looks very concerned about St. Jerome. The other monk on the other side of St. Jerome looks less so, but he is the one clutching him tightly, holding him up. The altar boy further away seems to gaze up at his candle, distracted, lost in some other thoughts. The nearer altar boy, the one in profile, seems very interested. He’s almost up on his toes, gazing over the priest’s shoulder, trying to see what’s going on. He seems much more curious than concerned.

St. Jerome himself appears to be focussed on nothing. He is on his knees, hands clasped in front of him in prayer, mouth open to receive communion. But as he looks straight ahead, he doesn’t seem to be seeing the priest or the altar boys. Perhaps he’s looking inward. Again, like the scene itself, he’s no longer really here among us. He’s on his way already.

The frame itself is a work of art too. It’s heavily gilded, but the gilding is fading, so that it now looks like orange marmalade. And above the painting the frame is arched, and there’s a separate scene painted in there as well. God on his throne, surrounded by angels and cherubim. These are true cherubim in the sense that they’re little children heads with wings, no fat little bodies attached. They’re frankly disturbing, is what they are. The angels are lovely though. What’s most interesting is the crucified Christ that God holds, between his knees like a cello.

The Last Communion of St. Jerome, early 1490s, Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi) (Italian, Florentine, 1444/45–1510), Tempera and gold on wood; 13 1/2 x 10 in. (34.3 x 25.4 cm), Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.642).