The Poem of the Soul

"The Poem of the Soul" is one of a cycle of eighteen paintings, most of them dated 1854 but painted between 1835 and 1855, all of which featured at the Universal Exposition of 1855 on the recommendation of Eugène Delacroix.

In eighteen paintings, the artist Louis Janmot traces the history of the early years of the soul on Earth. The soul is presented in the guise of a man, whom we see being born and reaching adulthood. He is given a female companion—a double with whom the artist seems to identify himself.

They are brother and sister; lovers; the soul and its “sister soul”, sometimes wandering the Earth and sometimes through the air. Here, the couple flies over high mountains, where the woman, drawing back the last curtain of clouds separating the pair from heaven, disappears for ever.

A key work of the Lyon school, "The Poem of the Soul" has often been criticized for being too similar to the English Pre-Raphaelite school. It is a landmark in spiritualist painting in 19th century Europe, like the art of the German Nazarenes or the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.