Beauty Reclining

This image is taken prior to the varnishing the piece. With a strong impressionist background, I usually don’t make commentary pieces. This one, however, is an exception.

drew from different inspirations, mostly from 1700’s Japanese prints, Gustav Lints “The Kiss” (images of my inspiration are below) and the positioning of the body similar to that in many reclined female poses as you would see in Manet’s “Olympia,” which referred to Titian’s Venus of Urbino (basically, her reclined pose a classical pose of a woman that artists like Manet, etc, have reused and reinterpreted to express new meaning. Here, I am contrasting a European method of presenting a woman with the Japanese figure). In the large image it isn’t easy to tell that I have used fortunes as you would find in fortune cookies to create the smoke. There is also enameling for this piece, which is a slow drying and somewhat unweildy medium. I have included close ups of both as well as the references that inspired me. The writing on the wall behind her is from well-known haikus.