This Sunday is Mother’s Day and we hope everyone will be celebrating happily with their moms – or being feted themselves with breakfast in bed and other goodies. We’re saluting our mothers with lots of love, nice dinners and fresh orchids arranged a la Sam Jones (who works here at the gallery and is also immensely talented when it comes to floral arrangements.)
The holiday did get us thinking about (what else?) paintings and mothers -- and how art can elevate its subject matter to heavenly heights.
Mothers have been heralded for centuries with countless paintings of the Madonna portrayed as saintly and pure – which she must have been.
Jorg Breu The Younger, “The Madonna and Child”
(We love her poignant expression – and the richness of the palette and way the light shimmers off the folds of her clothing.)
We’re drawn to the ordinariness of the subject: this mom’s a busy working woman and it looks like it’s almost naptime. The play of light and dark in this painting is exquisite and the composition is just about perfect.
Johann Gottlieb Hantzsch (1794-1848), Domestic Scene
You can’t think of paintings of mothers and children without Mary Cassatt coming in at the top of the list. We’re huge fans of this American impressionist painter and we’re collectively crazy about her tender and evocative paintings.
Mary Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed (how perfect is that?)
Mary Cassat, The Young Mother
Mary Cassatt, Sleepy Baby
Mary Cassatt, Mother and Two Children
Another impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, also painted softly rendered images of mothers, including this one of Madame Charpentier and her two children:
Madame Charpentier with her Children, oil on canvas, 1878(Madame C. looks so proud of her two beautiful girls)
Picasso rendered his mother and child with sharp lines and over-proportioned limbs – but the love and playfulness still shine through.
Pablo Picasso, Mother and Child, 1921-1922
Keith Haring did his colorful and acutely simple version in 1986’s Mother and Child.
So, happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there. We hope it’s filled with plenty of sunshine, love and laughter.
Mother and Child by Frances Hodgkins (pastel and charcoal, 1917)
Ta ta.
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