Barracuda wrote:How can one not just love this Bouguereau? The young girl's humor as she fends of her little attacker is delightful. There were few painters of his era who more sensuously depicted the female form, or more lovingly painted the human buttocks.
A few scattered observations/questions:
The young girl's humor as she fends off her little attacker is indeed delightful. My eyes just love this painting. The detail and the realism are exquisite. I doubt there is a muscle visible under their skin that is not actually verifiable in an anatomy textbook, except perhaps eros' overdeveloped lats which would power his flight.
Looking at this painting, I want to know what happened prior and what is going to happen.
One question that springs to mind is how the young girl came to be in this state of undress. The scene they are in is one that I would consider very romantic. In fact I have taken more than a few young maidens to a secluded spot on a hill with a view more than a few times in my life.
The season appears to be high summer.
The young girl obviously does not feel actually threatened or fearful of that rather dangerous looking little arrow Eros is wielding. She is not defending herself against his arrow, but against him as he attempts to wriggle between her legs. This makes me wonder a number of things. For instance, is she so comfortable as to be merely amused because she does not feel truly feel threatened or is her amusement an extension of what has happened prior to this moment? This tussle did not just start and in fact perhaps it was not a tussle prior to this moment. The young girl seems familiar with Eros in the way that an older sister might be familiar with a younger brother. Not that I am suggesting incest, but she definitely seems to be familair with Eros and his impish, lustful ways,
Her eyes are locked on his face. His eyes seem to be looking at her throat. The expression on Eros' face is ever so subtly sinister which suggests the knowledge he possesses that exceeds what you would expect given his physical form. There is something unsettling about that. Innocence is at once beautiful (expecially so to the not so innocent anymore) and also tragic (again especially, or perhaps exclusively, so to the not so innocent anymore). Eros is irrisistably drawn to the beautiful innocence of this young woman but unlike her is fully aware (presumably) of the tragedy that is contained within the imminent destruction of that innocence. It is she who is the child and unaware of her peril, despite appearances to the contrary.
I pondered this painting for a long while this weekend. Despite the seeming simplicity of it's composition I don't think I've really gotten at what it is all about.
Interesting side note:
I had not fully checked out the website where I found this image before I posted the link. Upon further inspection of the home page it's a bit creepy and some of the image galleries border on pseudo-child porn. I'm wondering if Bouguereau is an artist that pedophiles feel an affinity for and use to affirm their arguments. I can see how someone could twist this image and use it to those ends.
Edit: In fact I was so bothered by that site that I deleted the link to it. You'll just have to google Bouguereau if you want to see any other work of his.
The Bronzino is staggering. I had never seen that image. I'd need to brush up a bit on my greek mythology before I even hazard a loose assemblage of observations. There is so much going on there....
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
by sunny » Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:34 pm 
