Saturday 20th December - The Serious Book

Blimey, we are on the home straight now, aren't we? And only one more day of it getting darker before we are over the hump and heading towards Spring again.  Okay, I might be a little over optimistic on that front, after all January always feels like it's over a hundred days long (especially as I get paid before Christmas which makes January a 6-week month, ouch). On with the books!

The Serious Book (1874) Auguste Toulmouche

I had to admit I laughed when I saw this painting. On face value, it is just a funny painting of a couple of women who have dozed off while reading a book that is serious but possibly not interesting.  Obviously, it could be argued that it is a painting of silly females attempting to do serious reading and it is all too much for their lady-brains and their massive frocks, so they have passed out in a heap. That massive Japanese screen is very impressive too - is the point that in the face of such a lot of worldly art and knowledge, these two lasses have fallen asleep as thinking and reading are not feminine past-times? In Kathryn Brown's marvellous Women Readers in French Painting 1870-1890, she suggests that the weight of the book, intellectually speaking, is too much and it slips from the girl's hands.  She also shares Balzac's quote that women enjoy neither reason nor ripe fruit. Charming.

In the Library (1872) 

How could I not include this one? It was one of the first I wrote on my little list when devising this Blogvent as I adore that dress. I don't think this young lady would agree that reading is not for ladies. The fact she has hitched her skirt up over her arm puzzles me, unless of course she has been scrambling up the bookcase to find books to read.  She has a little 'tbr' pile going on next to her on the chair, so it looks like she has been busy getting a load of books out and leaving them in a heap.  Mind you, she could equally be discarding books because she has yet to find one with pictures...

Reading Aloud (1884) Albert Moore

When I saw the unconscious women, I was reminded of two different pictures - firstly, I thought of the sleepy women of Albert Moore's canvases.  They seem to wilt about, sometimes reading, and looking thoroughly exhausted. The languor of Moore's world raises so many questions - where are they? Is there a library nearby?  Why is everyone so tired?

Young Ladies Beside the Seine (1857) Gustave Courbet

Not to lower the tone, but also there is a hint of naughtiness when women flop into unconsciousness together in paintings.  I heard many a colourful interpretation of Moore's women and Courbet's ladies by the Seine, so I did wonder about our ladies in the library.  I noticed that most of the pieces I read on the painting described them as mother and daughter, which is one interpretation (cough, cough).  In the lady in brown-green's defence, she's not propped at a flattering angle, so I don't really think she's the other woman's mother. There is the question of what they have been reading - we have seen a couple of instances of women possibly reading things they shouldn't, and maybe the women have been overcome because it was all too scandalous! Maybe it's that book that I saw reviewed on TikTok where the woman has an affair with her pot plant. I was just going to link it here but couldn't remember the title, however it turns out to be an entire genre of spicy romance. Well, here we are.

With some of the paintings we have seen this month, you can tell what the book is, and I really wish we could see here and therefore we could know what has gone on - but I'm going to play innocent and say it was just a really, really boring book, something like Very Boring Pieces of Stone I Have Known by Professor Dull, but then that might be someone's absolutely dream book. Similarly, plant-based-sentient-object-romance books might not be for everyone, but a search I hope I never have to repeat reveals that the one I was recommended is called Vined and Dined, which is smutty genius, so maybe it will win the Booker Prize. 

See you tomorrow...