Sunday, November 18, 2007

Cross Dressing for Art's Sake:

The Picture Book by Renoir (circa 1895), has captured my undivided attention today. I did some un-required research trying to find out WHO exactly this little girl is...guess what?

It very well might not be a little "girl" at all!

I discovered that Renoir was famous for using his sons as models and feminizing them in his work (he never had any daughters).

This particular piece was painted one year after his second son was born. There are several known paintings in which Jean was the model and he is in a similar pose. I wonder if this little “girl” could actually be Renoir’s son, Jean.

I made sure to include my hunch in the single page paper for Art. I am always doing extra research for papers (and usually get caught up in something completely unrelated to the original idea).

I still like the painting for it's use of fast, deliberate brush strokes and the blurring edges. Any depiction of reading is always near and dear to my heart.

This extra "thirst" for knowledge and the constant "Who? What? When? Where? Why?" questions I always seem to form shall come in handy one day.

~~J

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