A Bow

This picture stands out for me because of the blue ribbon. I was in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston last Spring when I saw this painting. I had already been there for hours, taken a break, and started again when this blue bow made me take note.

The painting of Mme de Jurjewicz is by Winterhalter, an unknown artist to me before. I am unfamiliar with his other work. I keep meaning to find out more and get distracted by other things.

I don't look at paintings the way a painter would, or an art critic would. I know that not only intuitively but from my various conversations with either. I see different things, meaning where perhaps there was none, something simple where others need more complications, difficulty, strategy to pull the painting into a new and different place. I see a bow that is the perfect velvet from a memory I can't recall, that folds along the side of my mind in layers of fabric wrapped with childhood joys, and am happy.

I like learning the way a better eye sees a painting; I learn how to see more strategically. The challenge is, of course, also maintaining an innocent eye that enjoys the work uncomplicated by knowledge of technique and style, one that appreciates technique and style radiant with seeming effortlessness, permitting a passer-by to stop and look with pleasure, to bow to a simple bow.