Every picture tells a story, right? Some tell more than one. Others whisper. A few shout.
I took all the following photos during a short visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. The museum recently rehung, rearranged, and added some works of art from their vast storage facilities. In with my old familiar friends (paintings I’ve known and loved all my life) there were unfamiliar works and paintings by artists never covered in my art history classes. I was happy to discover 18th, 19th and early 20th century artists from Scandinavia, as well as “new” artists from Belgium, France, and Germany. There were also works I didn’t know, but artists I know well, and just rearranging some of the works, made others jump out to say ‘hello.’
I didn’t adore everything, but I was excited by the sense of discovery.
I was also inspired by some of the stories in those pictures. This is a departure post for me, as I have zero aspirations as a photographer. I’m simply sharing what I consider snapshots or the visual notes I take to goose my own imagination.
I hope you enjoy these picture prompts!
Andre Derain’s painting looked different and called out to me.
I like this odd—and oddly artificial— moment in time, caught by Alfred Stevens an unfamiliar Belgian painter.
There’s a story in this painting by Caspar David Friedrich, entitled Two Men Contemplating the Moon
Oh…that Alfred Stevens painting made me sit up and take notice. A male? painter, painting a female painter painting….
What vintage is that painting? I’m assuming it’s old, yet the subject matter could fit right in with gender equality issues here and now.
I wish I knew more about the history of this painting.
Yes! There’s a story in that composition. The two women on the right look like sisters to me. The woman on the left, the model, is languid and mysterious. Who are they? According to the museum, Alfred Stevens was born in Brussels in 1823 and died in Paris in 1906, and by the time he exhibited this painting at the Salon of 1892 he was a “consummate painter of chic, Parisian femininity.” The model, the artist and the visitor were posed in what is likely his studio. There’s a story there! (Possibly more than one.)