Art History Hotties: The Laundress

Art History Hotties


Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Laundress, 1761
By FRANCESCA MAURO

Jean-Baptiste Greuze's laundress glances up at us mischievously in the midst of this sultry scene of domesticity. She bends over a basin of water and washes linens. The background of The Laundress consists of dreary grey and brown tones. Everyday items such as a pitcher, baskets, and wooden cabinets mirror the sentiments of the Sensibility movement, which sought to challenge the Rococo portrayal of aristocratic life.

This painting illustrates an ordinary chore, laundry. However, the young, rosy-faced laundress assumes a cheeky pose. She presents a red-slippered foot, a scandalous act of exposure for her time. The muted tones of the laundress's clothes and background make the scarlet slipper, positioned in the bottom center of the canvas, a focal point. Our subject looks directly at the viewer, almost as if she has been interrupted in a private moment.

Although Greuze aims to portray daily life, he seems to glamorize the act of laundry with this Art History Hottie. The laundry room gets a bit more steamy with the addition of an oh-so-subtle ankle reveal and a charming glance.


  • 7:00 AM

The Village Bride

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Village Bride, 1761
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Tired of your basic paintings of wealthy royalty or ancient Goddesses? Well look no further, because Jean-Baptise Greuze The Village Bride of 1761 stands out from the crowd. The meager earnings of this rural middle-class family add to the allure and charm of the painting, setting his work apart from other great pieces of this time. Apparent from the doting couple’s intertwined arm, this young man and woman are definitely deep in love. While the men exchange the money, this marriage certainly does not appear forced. What better way to remind your significant other of the love that brought you two together than hanging this painting for all guests to observe. More than that, this painting tells a story. Every face represents another feeling towards this wedding. The bride looks somber, but the fact that she must leave her family causes this reaction. A skeptical sister sits behind her father, upset that she was not the first to get married in the family. On the bottom of the painting, the stray chick mirrors the fact that the bride walks away from the pack and goes on her own. Greuze splits the painting between men and women. The male side deals with the economic transaction, while the female side comforts the bride and seems to flow. Every inch of this 36 by 46-inch canvas tells a different story.

Aside from the unique and intricate story this painting tells, Greuze’s technique makes the painting worth a purchase. The dark, neutral tones contrasts with the stark white skin and apron of the bride, drawing the eye to the focal point. A balance of the rising staircase and the dark shadow on the upper right corner create a balanced composition. The symmetry of the people on each side makes the painting feel complete, and the painting seems to flow. The stonewall in the background adds a heaviness, and creates a bare spot that grounds the bottom half of the painting’s narrative. Overall, there is no disputation that Jean-Baptiste’s Greuze’s time at the Academy allowed him to master the skills needed to become a legendary painter. If not because of the intricate details, rich colors and balanced symmetry, you deserve this painting hanging on your wall out of a sign of love. Why try to smother your significant other with unsophisticated jewelry or redundant flowers when you could hold a piece of history in your home, all the while telling them how much you adore them. The young and pure couple illustrates this raw human emotion in its most innocent form and will light any room up with love.

Editor's Note: The authors were asked to write sales copy for Edme-François Gersaint, the prominent rococo art dealer who offered a printed catalog of available works.
  • 7:00 AM

Head of a Girl

Head of a Girl
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Head of a Girl

In my research of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, the word “sentimental,” or “sentimentality” often came across my radar, which was deemed so essential to Greuze’s work that critics then described his style as “sentimental art.” I never comprehended the meaning of it until I saw this portrait, Head of a Girl.

The majority of Greuze’s later work (1769-1805) consisted of titillating portraits of young girls, some of which involved girls who exposed their breasts under thin gauze, strongly suggesting sexuality under the surface appearance of childhood innocence. This portrait captures the immediacy of beauty. The young girl turns her head around, and gazes into the direction of the painter. The pigment of her face looks incredibly real, her natural blush adds color to the skin, and her dark eyes look peaceful.  Greuze’s artistic skills undoubtedly are showcased on this face. The brush strokes are light and delicate, with a certain ambiguity in application that blends the colors and adds softness to the painting.

The girl’s dress falls half down, exposing her left shoulder: all of a sign of flirtation. She exposes her back while looking back, as if inviting the painter/viewer to join her. Now we realize her true reason for blushing. Greuze achieves sentimentality through his careful work of facial expressions that exudes emotions, especially innocence. While having the face of a child, the girl’s sexually suggesting actions tell the opposite. Under the thin disguise of purity, she remains inherently corrupted.   

  • 7:00 AM

Broken Eggs

1756
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Broken Eggs, 1756

 Upon his first meeting with Cosette, Monsieur Gillenormand can’t help but exclaims, “How pretty she is! She is a Greuze.” This reference of Greuze in Les Misérables clearly demonstrates the acknowledged touching quality of his paintings, as if bringing up the artist’s name immediately provokes an image of a misty-eyed, love-craving teenage girl.

Truthfully, Greuze did his fair amount of teen girl portraits. Unlike the fellow painters of his time, Fragonard and Hubert Robert, Greuze devoted himself in the picturesque details of the contemporary life of ordinary people, rather than indulging in the ancient art and brilliance of the Renaissance. Genre paintings, a term that arose in 18th century France to describe painters who, like Greuze, specialized in elimination of idealization and focusd on the rudimentary conponents of life. And what’s a better example of daily life than broken eggs? 

Finished in 1756, the time when Greuze first rose to fame, Broken Eggs presents a moral teaching to all. A young woman dressed in working-class clothes sits at the lower left, again looking sad and embarrassed; besides her a basket sits of broken eggs. The middle figure, a young man dressed in fancy attire tries to get to the woman, but he is being held angrily by what appears to be the girl’s mother. Then we recognize a naughty boy on far right, who completes the compositional triangle of the other figures. 

The broken eggs on the floor suggest the impossibility of repairing what’s broken, hinting the girl’s lost virginity. The mother looks aggressive and angry, threatening the young man to take responsibility of he has done. The man, on the other hand, does not seem that he’s going in a bloody fight with the mother, rather he shows a determination to fix the situation. This strikes a similarity even 250 years later, when people still try to restore the innocence that’s already lost, or deal with the consequences of irreparable actions. Greuze, the moral compass of 18th century French art, here, teaches us an important lesson - what’s broken is broken. 

  • 7:00 AM