February Art: the gaze
The Guardian’s January art diet coming to a close, I thought I would continue where it left off (at Velazquez’s Las Meninas). Continuing January’s theme of looking and being looked at, February Art or (FART) begins with Murillo’s Two Women at a Window (1675), in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (where after much mutual gazing I fell in love with it).
Though he excelled at the usual grand Biblical themes, Murillo’s art comes alive in local moments of human observation: saints reading, mothers resting, boys eating – or not eating, too tired even to beg. These two contrasting but warmly-observed women almost reverse the male gaze, contemplating the viewer in innocent conspiracy, frankly looking or even laughing (why? are we no kind of suitor?), as they lean out of the window and out of the picture frame, into our world.
thebicyclops 