I recently saw a film about the relatively well known French artist Séraphine.  She was a peasant woman at the turn of the 20th century who had no training in art and she was discovered by an art critic entirely by mistake.

She was an extremely devout Catholic who believed that her guardian angel inspired her to paint.

To this day no one knows what her paints were made of (she made them herself from things she found about the place.  They remain incredibly vivid  in color despite the fact that there is speculation that they were made with mixtures of animal blood (from cooking), dirt, and the like.

Sadly Séraphine died in an asylum.

The film itself was rather good I thought - though I must offer the following caveats:

1. In one scene, Séraphine pours wax from the candles in the Church into a little jug for later use in her paints.

2. In another scene, Séraphine seems to have some kind of moment of ecstasy or insanity and she paints a statue of Our Lady (in the Church) pink.

3. The man who discovered Séraphine is a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ and the film hints at the fact that he is having a relationship with a young male artist who is living with him.  This is handled very discretely though (compared to other films) and there is no physical contact or provocative words.  In fact, the man who discovered her was a Jєωιѕн ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ and if it is going to be portrayed in film, it couldn't really be done any more discretely than it was in this film.

So, those things aside, I would recommend the film to adult Catholics.

Has anyone else seen it?  If so, what did you think?

You can

And here is a sample of her art: