#ArtIHeart 4 - The Reason I'm Single?

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

Girl With Lemons; W. Bouguereau, 1899

This was the picture that all the fuss was about. This was the picture that got me a lecture from my Feng Shui/Chinese Medicine friend about ruining my chances of ever getting married. This picture was the reason I bought this picture of perfect coupledom in order to strike a balance. However, my friend was adamant that the Girl With Lemons had to go if I were to make room for a man in my home. Quite frankly, I think I made the better choice ;)

Girl With Lemons is part of the Israel Museum Collection and what I have framed is a poster from the museum shop. I fell in love with this painting because of the colours, the setting and the girl herself. Maybe for the same reason that Mummy Plum chose this picture. Or I may be flattering myself. I knew that this was going to hang in my kitchen when I moved apartments and I even chose the colours of the kitchen around it. See...

Well you can't design a kitchen around someone and then chuck them out, can you?

I saw Girl With Lemons once in The Broadwalk Shopping Centre in Edgware while I was visiting family. She didn't have her lemons and in fact she was about nine years old as opposed to the older teenager on my wall. But it was the same girl by the same artist. I wanted to buy the print (small poster?) of her younger self but the stall holder had it framed in a fancy gilt surround and wanted 40 pounds for it. So I left her in Edgware.

I did some research (google) and found that W. Bouguereau (1825 - 1905, French) spent his life painting my girl - you can see loads of her here. He was married twice and had five children. As he painted this girl from when she was a child, I was hoping she was one of his daughters. But it seems she was a model he hired to pose for him.

P.S. did you notice the small picture tucked into the frame at the bottom R-H corner? I was so freaked out by my friend's lecture at the time that I cut up a catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, NYC, and placed little copies of paintings depicting couples and families wherever I could find places. When I was going through IVF I placed mothers and daughters everywhere. There is one other one left tucked into the sockets in my bedroom. And I'm so not superstitious - I don't know what came over me.

#ArtIHeart 2 - Bought For Marriage

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

Butterfly Hunters by Yosl Bergner (b. 1920)

Many years ago, when I first came to Israel, I gave some English lessons to two brothers in their parents' penthouse in Jerusalem. We sat at the dining-room table and when I gave them exercises to complete, I was free to let my eyes wander round the room and appreciate the artwork on the walls and objets d'art on display. Opposite the table was an enormous painting by Yosl Bergner.

I fell in love with that painting. It was dark and somewhat haunting but yet full of surprises. The picture consisted of many windows, columns and arches. Figures were hidden behind the columns or peeking out under the arches. I would have loved to own a picture like that. I would have loved anything by Yosl Bergner. I had fallen in love with Yosl Bergner.

Fast forward 15 years and I have moved into my present flat. A friend who was studying Chinese medicine and heavily into Feng Shui, came to visit. She saw my favourite picture (a framed poster) of a girl with lemons and my print of the rabbi on his bicycle rushing to prayers. "Do you ever want to get married Rachel?" she asked me, "because if you do, get rid of these pictures. Just get rid of them!"

I suggested that If I hung them close together they might cancel each other out. Or they could be seen as a couple (incongruous but not impossible). "Just get rid of them!" she repeated. Reader, I didn't get rid of them but I found this Yosl Bergner, signed, limited edition, print in a local framer's shop. I recognised it as one of my best friends has had the exact same print in her home for 20 years. (Coincidently, hers is 223/250 and mine is 222/250 - I win). With this purchase I intended to balance my Fung Shui for getting married. No luck so far :~).

To see more of Yosl Bergner's paintings look here.