Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Princess Pauline Metternich (1836–1921) on the Beach
Artist: Eugène Boudin (French, Honfleur 1824–1898 Deauville)
Date: ca. 1865–67
Medium: Oil on cardboard, laid down on wood
Dimensions: 11 5/8 x 9 1/4 in. (29.5 x 23.5 cm)
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 821
Pauline Metternich, wife of the Austrian ambassador at the court of Napoleon III, was a famously homely yet chic style icon known for her sense of wit; she was said to have referred to herself as “the fashion monkey.” Boudin achieved success with his scenes of stylishly dressed families taking the sea air at Trouville and other beach resorts, and apart from Empress Eugénie, no woman would have aroused more interest on the beach than her friend Princess Metternich.
The sky is gray, and so is this woman’s dress. The other woman is wearing a yellow-brown dress that matches the color of the sand and the blob of paint on the lower right.
As for the main lady in the center of the picture, the back part of her dress, which is in the sun, is a lighter gray than the sky. The front part of her dress, which is in shadow, is a darker gray than the sky.
It’s a very limited color palette all in all.
The woman in the center of the painting is pretty clearly defined, but the woman in the back on the left is just a bulk of brush strokes.
Is the woman in the center walking a dog? She has a stick-like thing stretching out from her hand. It could be a taut leash. At her feet are a light brown blotch which could be a dog. The left side of the blotch is in the shape of a dog’s head. And below the light brown blotch is a dark brown shadowy thing which looks like it may have legs.
It’s strange how this question remains a question, that the painter didn’t make it clearer.
Sun off screen on the left. Woman walking away from the sun. Her face is in shadow. I can’t imagine walking on the beach wearing so many heavy layers of clothes.
The brush stroke in the sky is interesting. At the top, especially on the right, it’s horizontal. Just to the right of the lady in the center the sky is darker, as if she were casting a shadow on the sky. And on the left is a brown smear in the sky, matching the light yellow-brown down on the ground: the 2nd woman’s clothing, the light brown blob to the right of the main woman’s foot.
I think this is a study of the human form when it is draped in layers and layers of heavy cloth. There’s not much else you can identify in the picture. You can’t see her face that well because it’s in shadow, and the woman in the background is practically a cipher.
The main lady is the shape of a Christmas tree.
With all the heavy clothes on . I am guessing it must be winter .. How many people go to the beach in winter ??