When an English class assignment called for students to visit the MFA on our own and pick a painting that stood out to us for whatever reason, I found myself standing in front of John Singer Sargent's psychologically intriguing masterpiece from 1882, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. I had never seen, or heard of this painting before that day, but the mysterious artwork, standing majestically on its own wall, in between the two vases depicted in the portrait, gave me an unsettling feeling which confirmed immediately that it would be the painting I would be writing my paper on.
It was also the main reason I wanted to bring Izzat to the MFA, as he was in town visiting, so he could see this unconventional painting in its original grandeur, and tell him its story. How all four girls in the portrait never married. Or that the two eldest sisters, standing in the shadows, the emblematic darkness closing in on them and signifying the loss of innocence and retreat into alienation, grew up to suffer from mental illness.
A chilling sort of foretelling, and truth, in which life imitates art, as Oscar Wilde would suggest, more than art imitates life.
No comments:
Post a Comment