Jul 29, 2021
July 29th
Interesting social commentary painting — from 110 years ago. That looks very modern (except for the maid — I don’t think that is common anymore to have a maid), notwithstanding the clothing. They are obviously well off, I mean the clothes, the spacious room (and that it is not even a dining room — too small for that), porcelain tea set and vases, the child’s cradle (is it a cradle or a flower basket? Or the sewing basket?) and well, the maid. They are young, seems to me like just getting to their thirties. A beautifully WASP-y, proper, wealthy, upstanding couple from New York or Boston. And there is a lot of tension, especially for breakfast. The guy is busy reading a newspaper in his immaculate suit and great, slick coiffure while his wife just sits there in her beautiful dress and primped hairdo, anxious and angry and disappointed and resentful and sad at something. Is it the maid? She seems younger and just as pretty as a lady of the house. And as a maid also very vulnerable. Or maybe it is the husband — he pays more attention to the newspaper than the wife or breakfast. There is a visible tension there — on the wife’s side, the husband is rather oblivious. Anyway, that is a pretty interesting social commentary on alienation in the family life — as it was with readily available newspapers hundred years ago, the radio eighty years ago, TV fifty years ago, and the internet and social media and cell phones now. Not much really changes in human nature and human interactions.
