The Neophyte (First Experience of the Monastery)

New to the monastery, a young man gazes woefully at the viewer. He clearly regrets his vows. Anxious images like this one were a staple of Romantic art, and Gustave Doré was a master of the genre. He took his subject from George Sand’s contemporary novel Sipiridion, in which a young novice, Brother Angel, bemoans his isolation behind the cloister wall. Doré heightens the youth’s desolation by contrasting his tense posture and youthfulness with the row of bent and decrepit old men. Doré himself noted the grim humor of the young man’s predicament and quipped, “He will be over the wall tonight.”

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