Le bon samaritain

Le bon samaritain (The Good Samaritan) of 1896 represents an unusual incursion into religious subject matter for Luce, whose secular anarchist convictions generally kept him away from biblical themes. The parable of the Good Samaritan, however, carried obvious appeal for someone with his political beliefs: it is a story about aid given across social boundaries, about the primacy of direct human compassion over institutional piety. In 1896, Luce was deeply embedded in anarchist intellectual circles and had recently recovered from his arrest and imprisonment two years earlier. The interpretation of a scriptural subject through a social-ethical lens would have resonated with the anti-clerical but humanistic strains of French anarchism. Whether the painting takes a traditional compositional approach to the subject or transposes it into a contemporary context is significant for understanding Luce's engagement with the theme. The work dates from a period when Neo-Impressionism was in dialogue with Symbolism, and some painters of the circle explored mythological or allegorical subjects with divisionist technique.

The figurative composition is handled with Luce's characteristic interest in human physical presence and gesture. The divisionist surface provides a luminous field for the dramatic interaction of figures, with complementary color relationships used to heighten emotional contrast between the fallen figure and the helper.