Neoclassical Ruth

Ruth by the French Academic Painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889). This is a very reduced nearly symbolist painting.

Hard working Ruth

Ruth gleaning in a medieval illumination. That she's the most hard working is demonstrated because she alone is on her knees,

Hard Working Ruth

Ruth in a medieval illumination. Already the hard working girl what made her so popular.

Ruth’s Loyalty

This is a more recent Bible illustration from 1965. It’s by the American artist Francis Marshall (1901-1980) who worked also for Vogue and did a lot of book and magazine illustrations.

Ruth and Naomi in Italy

Ruth Declares her Loyalty to Naomi (1614) by the Dutch painter Pieter Lastman (c.1583-1633).

Lastman was a well known history painter working in Amsterdam where Rembrandt was one of his students. Ruth and Naomi are painted here as contemporary women. The only hint that the story happened in another place is the Italian landscape, which Lastman knew by his studies there.

Boaz and Ruth

Once more the hard working Ruth is discovered by Boaz, her future husband.

Engraving by Paul Gustave Doré (1832–1883) from the illustrated Bible (1866).

Wherever you go, I will go…

Ruth and Naomi (1886) by the English Painter Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898).

Naomi wanted to go back to Bethlehem and Orpah is also on her way. Ruth instead is begging to stay with Naomi. The two women seemed like lovers, when Ruth is saying: "For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge…”

Ruth by Tissot

James Tissot (1836-1902) was a French painter who had immigrated to England after the suppression of the Paris Commune. In London he had great success with his (in my opinion brilliant) paintings of fashionable women. But after the suicide of his beloved mistress (she had tuberculosis) he returned to France underwent a religious conversion and became a devoted catholic. He visited the Holy Land in 1886-87 and published a series of illustrations to the events of the Bible, which became enormously popular.

Here is Ruth gleaning. An impressionist influence can be noticed. The artist is primarily interested in the oriental landscape, the light and the workers. Probably Tissot watched similar scenes.

Modern Ruth in old clothes

Ruth in the Fields. That’s the cover of a magazine of 1947.


It’s obvious how the technique of 19th century history painting now have spread to a more popular level. Now it’s important to show the persons in oriental and historical costumes. Nevertheless Ruth with her makeup resembles an American woman of 1947.

Nazarene Ruth

Although this too is a 19th century romantic Ruth, it's quite different from that of Francesco Hayez.

It's by the German painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872), who was a member of the the Nazarene brotherhood. The artists which belonged to this movement sought their inspiration in the art of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and rejected what they called "superficial virtuosity" of later art.

Because of that this painting resembles a two dimensional panel painting of the 15th century. A Nazarene never would have painted a naked Ruth or have followed the oriental fashion of his time.

Romantic Ruth

This example of Ruth is by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882) the leading artist of Italian Romanticism. Ruth is wearing the clothes of an Arab women, which means Orient, and she has a bunch of grain in her arm, which indicates that she is Ruth.

I don't understand why she must be naked. Because this isn't mentioned at all in the Bible. Probably its a concession to contemporary taste, which liked so much semi-nude oriental women.

Ruth (1835)

Ruth a Lesson in Loyalty

During a famine an Israelite family emigrated from Bethlehem to the land of the Moabites where the two sons married the Moabite women Ruth and her sister Orpah. But when all the male members of the family died there are only Naomi the mother and her two daughters-in-law left. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem but only Ruth was willing to go with her and said the famous words: "For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried."
Ruth accompanied Naomi to Bethlehem and worked there hard as a gleaner on the fields of Boaz a relative of Naomi. Later Ruth married Boaz and they have a son called Obed who is the the grandfather of David.

Ruth is usually regarded as an example of loyalty.

Ruth in the Fields (1876)

The painting is by the French artist Hugues Merle (1823-1881) a student of Léon Cogniet and a friend of William Bouguereau.