Response to Ekphrasis

Last year, I went to MET as a class field trip. We were at French painters section on second floor, among those famous paintings, I paid a lot of attention on one particular art piece. It was Joan D'arc (Joan of Arc)French heroine by Jules Bastien-Lepage in 1879. In this painting, Joan of Arc was in her  parent's garden, standing, gazing somewhere far far away and her body was slightly leaning towards a tree which she was holding. At her back, there were two angels floating in the air, who were probably attempting to guide her to protect her town and her people from enemy. Unlike other painters who usually picture her as brave war hero dressing her with heavy armors and sword, Jules Bastien-Lepage's version of Joan of Arc was just a normal peasant girl who had no idea of her huge breakout to mark her as legend for generations. As for me, this is my favorite art of all time because it always seems to make me think of how future is unpredictable. Because nobody knows what that future might hold and what that future might bring, like in Blindness, nobody expected to go blind, nobody foresaw how messy and ugly humans could be, nobody wanted to be killed, abandoned, starved or neglected. I was terrified to read all those cruelty in the book and at the same time, I also wondered how did Saramago write all in details like he had been experienced before. How could all inhumanity actions in asylum were perfectly crafted? Now I understand why this book won Nobel prize because it was a complete master piece.