This is a large horizontal oil on canvas painting. There are ten monks seated across the canvas in the foreground, with their knees pointing to the right. They wear white hooded tunics. Two look toward the viewer, an old man with a long beard appears to look over the viewer's head, and the younger man in the center (the neophyte) makes eye contact with the viewer. He holds an open prayer book in his lap. The light appears to fall across these two faces, more than the others, which are buried in shadow. Some of the other monks are reading, some sleeping or deep in meditation, or praying the rosary.

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   Gustave Doré French, 1832–1883 The Neophyte (First Experience of the Monastery), ca. 1866–68 Oil on canvas 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.” Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2061

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