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Seurat: Un dimanche après-midi à l’ile de La Grande Jatte

My friend, Seurat, and I  were often together  at la Grand Jatte. He was sketching, I was taking photos. Often  our mutual friend, the writer Emile Zola, would join us. Like Seurat, Zola looked for inspiration among the representatives of various classes, who gathered at La Grande Jatte. Many passers-by […]

Eduard Manet’s Model for Nana

Manet’s model for Nana was the actress Henrietta Hauser. The painter liked his models so much that he made another painting of Henriatta Hauser in the same blue corset. That painting is exhibited in Germany under the title Frau vor dem Spiegel. Below are the model and the painting.  

UNDERWEAR

The primary function of underwear is utilitarian. Underwear keeps us warm, keeps away the bodily fluids from the outerwear and protects the body from the maybe coarse material of the upper garments. Underwear also has an erotic function but there were stages in its development when underwear was less than […]

John Everett Millais: Ophelia

The painters take really looked like this: Ophelia was not singing while she was drowning. She was just serene in the midst of all the marsh muck.

Elisabeth Taylor

Elisabeth Taylor’s close-up in one of her early movies as a grown-up: The Father of the Bride. Batterfield 8.

Eduard Manet, Argenteuil, les canotiers

The little village of Argenteuil by the Seine, easily reached from Paris by train, was a favourite of the Impressionists. They painted scenes of the changing outdoors and of  people in that relaxing ambiance.   The couple on the painting does not look happy and relaxed. Each of them seems […]

Madame Bovary

Dr Bovary on  his way to see a patient.His wife, Emma, was “educated” on schmaltz. She refused to accept that reality cannot even approach her romantic expectations of life. The end had to be tragic.

David Copperfield – An Excerpt

While going to school David lodged at Mr Wickfield’s. Mr Wickfield had a daughter, Agnes, who became David’s friend and, ultimately, wife.

Cleopatra and Her Men

This is Cleopatra attired as the goddess Hathor. All ancient sources praise her intelligence and charm. She spoke several languages, among them the language of the Egyptians which the other rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty did  not bother to learn. (The Ptolemaic dynasty was of Greek origin. The first Ptolemy […]

The Many Dresses and Faces of Scarlett O’Hara

The Dresses White, ruffled dress in the opening scene of the movie. In the movie this dress is white muslin with green print.  The colors are reversed in this recreation but the daring decolletage is the same. The simple, everyday dress in the Civil War scenes. The curtains at Tara […]