12.29.2009

Woman Sitting Beside a Stove . . . waiting for the leftovers to reheat

So, how do I announce that we are 1 short of 64 Leftover Loving Printmakers???   I could go to the novel I'm reading, open it up to page 63, which I did, but there was nothing of any relevance in the novel.  So, I hunted through my printmaking books, and opened one of them (A Treasury of the World's Great Prints, 1961 - which I found at Powell's Books in Portland in the used section) to page 63.  That page had Rembrandt's Christ with the Sick Around Him, Receiving Little Children, which is a lovely print but didn't really speak to me.  Thus, I turned the page to 64, and what to my wondering eyes should appear?????

If she isn't waiting for the leftovers to reheat, my name is Albrecht Durer!

But all kidding aside, the note that appears below the print is what really caught my attention.   It reads:  The artist did not see woman in terms of classic beauty or perfect proportions.  He could not make of the nude a specious, standardized product.  Here he takes a Dutch housemaid, heavy, fertile and mortal, and gives her a solid grace worthy of a goddess.  Etching 8-7/8" x 7-3/8", courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection  

No comments:

Post a Comment