Les Adieux (The Farewell)

Through a firmly closed iron gate, a man and a woman hold hands and gaze intently at each other. Fallen leaves scatter at their feet, depicting a melancholic yet beautiful scene of parting lovers dressed in classical 18th-century attire.

Yet, beneath the surface of this romantic painting, lie the harrowing memories and desperate flight of the painter James Tissot.

In 1871, when this painting was created, he had just barely escaped from his homeland, France, to London. Paris at the time was in the midst of the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent bloody civil conflict known as the 'Paris Commune'.

Tissot, who had once achieved great success depicting the elegant upper class and lived in a luxurious mansion, had also thrown himself into the harsh front lines as a National Guardsman and had even been wounded.

What he witnessed there was the hellish sight of executed citizens' bodies being thrown from the city walls like 'rag dolls'.

Deeply traumatized, Tissot fled to London with only 100 francs in his pocket.

One of the first works he painted as a step towards rebuilding his life in a foreign land was this very painting, 'The Farewell'.

The cold iron gate separating the two seems not merely a stage prop, but also a symbol of the cruel severance from an irretrievable past and his homeland.

The scissors hanging from the woman's waist and the falling autumn leaves implicitly suggest 'loss and separation'.

However, at the same time, at their feet, ivy, symbolizing 'fidelity' and 'marriage', and holly, representing 'hope' and 'passion', are subtly depicted.

Amidst the harrowing memories of war and the depths of despair from losing everything, he may have quietly entrusted into this painting of a quiet farewell his own rebirth and hope for a new life.