When Amy returns from Pont Aven to find that Sonja has brought La Grecque and Angelica into their studio, she makes the best of what she considers a bad situation by insisting that the model earn her keep by posing. The idea of Amy’s unflinching desire to take advantage of the chance to study a sick woman’s appearance was suggested to me by several 19th C paintings of sick beds or death beds. The most haunting case, which Carolus-Duran recounts to Jeanette later in the novel, was Monet’s oil sketch of his wife, Camille, in the hour after her death.
For an earlier post, click here.
For Carolus-Duran’s own painting of a convalescent, click here.
For an exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay devoted to the portrayal of sufferers on their deathbeds in Western art, click here.
For an earlier post, click here.
For Carolus-Duran’s own painting of a convalescent, click here.
For an exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay devoted to the portrayal of sufferers on their deathbeds in Western art, click here.