THE WORLD OF SAMUEL MEEKER, MERCHANT OF PHILADELPHIA, AND GILBERT STUART, AMERICAN PORTRAIT ARTIST

Saturday, June 19, 2010

an AHA moment. (no sunscreen, etc)

Yesterday was nothing special or out of the ordinary, as usual watching the news on a Fri. eve (love the Shields-Brooks match up on the PBS Nightly report) when my brother Paul's girlfriend gave me a call. She wanted to drop by to show me some photoportraits of herself she had done in celebration of her 50ieth. Very nice! A lady after my heart for besides being fit (yet still brought over MaryAnn's ice cream), we ended up talking about loving things of the past and soon enough were talking about Meeker who hangs on my livingroom wall. She says, "There are two different colors in the face." and I am thinking of my response which would have been something along the lines of well yes Stuart was known for his ability to achieve translucence of the skin...............when she adds "Like, he was wearing a hat!".

I had never thought of it before, as obvious a point as it is!!! Yes, so many of Stuart's male sitters have the ruddy cheeks and whitish forehead; exactly, men were outside so much of the time, on horseback when going from one place to another thereby their hat was most likely a daily necessity (and no sun screen!), the women were inside, or when outside with hats/parasols so their faces are uniformly pale (or with the delicate blush).... and Stuart depicted the exact reality as was his norm....

**

1 comment:

Rouchswalwe said...

That's so cool. To be a successful detective, one must have this talent.

 
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