I liked the chiming curls of blue trim and folds of blue satin, as this woman stood in front of "Lady in a Blue Dress" (a John Singleton Copley painting in the Art Institute of Chicago).
Consider this another open thread.
July 13, 2018
Lady in blue.
I liked the chiming curls of blue trim and folds of blue satin, as this woman stood in front of "Lady in a Blue Dress" (a John Singleton Copley painting in the Art Institute of Chicago).
Consider this another open thread.
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I bet museums have become more popular since instagram came on the scene. It's just a 3D extension of looking at someone's timeline. The museums should add a thumbs up/ thumbs down bottons.
The Art Institute of Chicago is a wonderful place.
The juxtaposition of a girl in a dress and a girl in pants.
Not to be confused with Devil With a Blue Dress On.
I want to meet the artist that created women like her.
The juxtaposition of a lady in blue and a hostess in blue. Who is this mysterious figure? Is it you?
Given that you posted the Balthus painting just ten days ago, I'd have guessed you'd do Cassatt's "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair."
the chiming curls of blue trim and folds of blue satin
It becomes her.
See, now I am sure there will be commenters that can describe how the composition of that photo directs one’s attention to the painting, but my attention goes right to her butt.
Not to be confused with Devil With a Blue Dress On.
Does the painting look like Monica to you?
So I’m walking towards Copley this morning with the usual flow of folks walking to work but as I proceed I sense something is amiss. There’s a unified little buzz amongst a seemingly unrelated group of people. What is it? Then I spot it- crossing the street is a young woman carrying a large briefcase bag on her shoulder and somehow her tulip mini is stuck to it and the hem is up in her armpit. Alas, no woman hero in the crowd to come to her aid.
Looks like they would have put it on a lighter, neutral-colored wall.
There’s a similar Copley portrait in the St Louis art museum. It’s one of my favorites.
If you’ve never been there I think you’d enjoy it.
"
Not to be confused with Devil With a Blue Dress On."
That movie, which I think is excellent, was made in 1995, before the Monica scandal.
There are a handful of long-deceased women I wish I had known in their heyday. At about the time Copley was painting "Lady in a Blue Dress" Benjamin Blythe painted a portrait of Abigail Adams that shines with her intelligence. As depicted in the Blythe portrait she's lovely enough, but those eyes ...
@Althouse, did they ever decide who the "Lady in a Blue Dress" was? Apparently Copley never identified her, if I understand correctly.
That movie, which I think is excellent, was made in 1995, before the Monica scandal.
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels had a hit with Devil With a Blue Dress On in 1966, years before Monica was born (1973).
Then again, there are three dramatic lines in the photo that do converge pretty much on her butt.
Note to Laura Ingraham, don’t mention Pepto Bismal when you are wearing a pink dress and pink lipstick. Telling you this as a friend.
John Singleton Copley was the other American artist of the Revolutionary period, the other other was the prolific and magnificent Benjamin West. The other other other American artist was Gilbert Stuart, not as well-known as West is today, but his portraits are well worth seeing. Gilbert captured personality with as much aplomb as West handled action.
Copley's is most famous for Watson and the Shark, a terrifying moment of real history captured in the artist's imagination. The victim was Brook Watson, a 14-year-old Anglo-American merchant seaman who was attacked in Havana Harbor while leisurely swimming in the warm surf. If you look at the lower left you'll notice that the boy's right leg disappears into the lower margin of the canvas. That's Copley being discrete. The shark made two attacks on Watson before his shipmates could haul him out of the water. The first took a big chunk out of his right calf, and the second nearly severed his foot. The ship's surgeon saved young Watson's life but not the leg, which was amputated at the knee. Copley's shark is very interesting because it is not known that the artist ever saw a shark in anything other than drawings, yet he does a credible job. Shark experts believe Brook Watson was injured by a bull shark, a species notorious for unprovoked attacks on bathers. Copley shark has a head that fits the bull shark description fairly well, but its too big, more like a great white. If Watson had encountered a white shark, it would have been likely he would have been devoured before help could row out to him. Bull sharks, however, seem content with taking one or two big tasty bites, then swimming away to let their victims die of blood loss.
The painting was on its own alcove, with no other artwork, so the wall color was very carefully chosen to be perfect for this painting.
If you want an answer to the mystery of who the woman is, click the link I’ve given you.
And if you want to know who The Lady in a Blue Dress would look like, here in 2018 - she is about 20 pounds heavier and half a foot taller than Ariana Grande, so no, not Ariana Grande.
I'm gonna go with Rumer Willis as the closest contemporary equivalent. Or, possibly, maybe Mara Rooney. Maybe I am wrong, but I think portraiture is an important art, and I try to get these things right.
if you want to double check my numbers, as they say at Ernst and Young:
Emily Dickinson - Nicole Richie (Mary Beth Hurt)
Jane Austen - Saoirse Ronan (Holly Hunter)
Herman Melville - Jim Caviezel (James Woods)
Walt Whitman - Woody Harrelson (Don Knotts)
"Blue Boy" and " Pinkie" are in the Huntington in Pasadena.
Scollay Square. Know it well.
Lived a half block away in 1965.
@Althouse, there is nothing at the link you gave us that goes very far beyond speculation as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s Mercy Scollay, but it could be someone else.
Stormy Daniels pre-boob job in a nice dress?
the fabric is fab.
If you want an answer to the mystery of who the woman is, click the link I’ve given you.
Liar! The link doesn't talk about the blonde woman at all.
Seriously, the woman standing there has hair almost exactly like one of my first loves. It puts me in a sweet melancholy state of mind.
Maybe it’s Mercy Scollay, but it could be someone else
Indeed.
Lord, Give me the courage to accept answers that can never be known as "We'll never know."
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/02/valentine-to-miss-mercy-scollay/
My first impression of the painting was that it was probably an American woman and that the work was one of Copley's earlier efforts. I'm gratified to learn I was right on both counts. What struck me immediately was the woman's natural hair. Gainsborough was able to convince many of his sitters to forego the elaborate French-style with the big wig and the fancy silk for a more relaxed and naturalistic style, such as this one of Richard Sheridan's wife. Before about the mid-1770's most aristocratic English women preferred to pose in their best wigs and most expensive gowns. This wasn't as true for American women, primarily because even the biggest American cities of the time could hardly attract the French-trained hairdressers with the skill to style and maintain the most expensive women's hairpieces. Ergo, Copley + wigless woman = American sitter. The other striking feature is the dress. There's really not much of Miss Mercy's anatomy to be seen. There are her face and her hands, but the theme of the composition is the gown. Copley really wasn't up on his anatomy until he was able to study in Europe — France and Italy especially. Before his tour Copley was a gifted student, a competent draftsman with innate skills with color, but his portraits were stiff and inanimate. By concentrating on the gown Copley was able to fudge the whole anatomy thing, which he obviously knew was deficient. Take a look at Watson and the Shark and you'll see an artist unafraid of human movement.
the wall color was very carefully chosen to be perfect for this painting.
Huh? It makes the frame look good, but her dress is overwhelmed by the blue.
The woman has Blythe Danner hair.
There’s a saying. “You always want the blonde to turn around.”
The portrait is not owned by the Art Institute but is on loan from the Terra Foundation which once had an art museum on Michigan Avenue and opened to much fanfare back in the Eighties but is now closed.
Watson commissioned the painting. That's why he's a buff 14 y.o.
The amount of unpaid work it takes to get sexist, racist, bullying people out of positions of power is mindboggling - Salon
So they want to be paid for their blood sport? If they were paid, they might have to prove their charges with evidence and stuff. They might even have to define “sexist” and “racist” to mean something other than, “holds a position on these matters that I disagree with.” For instance, it turns out that I hate women because I once averred that it was difficult for a single woman to run a a large property with a wood heated home without a man around. I even went so far as to say that it would be hard for two women. Unless one of them was sort of a rare breed. Never said it was impossible. Still I am a misogynist, I hate women. Don’t get me started on my career as a serial rapist wherein I slept with women when we were both a little inebriated or high. Good thing I am retired, or these people would feel obligated to take on the “unpaid work” of getting me fired.
Steve Cohen: I regret mentioning the Purple Heart medal at yesterday's hearing.
I regret politicians grovelling. The question is - what is he grovelling for?
The query is not of the identity of the woman in the painting, but rather the woman in front of the painting who bears a remarkable resemblance to our hostess.
n.n said...a remarkable resemblance to our hostess.
You mean the ass, or the shoes?
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