The Portrait Of Madame De Pompadour

"Sitting around miserable all day will [not] make you any happier" is a famous quote once said by John Boyne in the book named The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. In the short story, "The Necklace", by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Liosel shows how ungrateful she always is and how she is never satisfied. Although that is what she showed throughout the whole story, she eventually changed her ways. Madame Liosel wants luxurious things, but can not afford them because of her social status. She borrows a necklace and ends up loosing it. Madame Liosel works hard to pay for it. She realizes that the necklace was just an imitation and not worth that much. Madame Liosel learns that money is not everything and she should stay true to herself.

Artwork, too, was just as divergent. Consider the Rococo masterpiece The Swing, by artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The delicate coiling of the tree branches, the ruffling of the fabric and lace on the subject’s dress, and the play of light and shadow in this painting of a woman on a swing in the forest are all visual hallmarks of the Rococo style. Again, contrast with a Neoclassic masterpiece Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David. This work, which shows

Changing the characterization of Beauty: An Analysis of Madame de Beaumont's La Belle et La Bête and Daniel Barnz’s Beastly

The Virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux was commissioned by Queen Jeanne d’Evreux, wife of King Charles IV, sometime between 1324 and 1339, and donated to the royal abbey church of Saint-Denis in 1339 according to the inscription on the pedestal (Barbier). French royals in the 13th and 14th centuries often had luxury works of metal and enamel commissioned for churches, palaces, or their private homes (Kleiner).

Madame de Pompadour, mistress, confidante and advisor to King Louis XV of France, and later, Lady in Waiting to his Queen, rose from the middle classes to become a woman of influence in the French court of 1746 - 1764. Pompadour embraced the grand lifestyle of the aristocracy including having her portrait painted numerous times by many artists, utilizing her influence in how she was painted and the messages those paintings portrayed (Jones). Her court painter, Francois Boucher represented her as an idealized beauty (Jones) especially in his masterful oil painting of 1756, Portrait of Madame de Pompadour, which showcased her opulent lifestyle, beauty, and intelligence (Davies 766) and status in the French court. In this portrait, Boucher sets Pompadour in an intimate scene, typical of Rococo style art, dressed in sumptuous silks, surrounded by books, flowers and elaborate draperies, at her ease, gazing into the distance, caught in a moment of thought. Painted shortly after her appointment as Lady in Waiting to the Queen, the painting is a celebration of Pompadour’s status in the French Court of King Louis XV.

If great writers are able to escape the influences of their era and write in a timeless fashion, then Jeanne Marie LePrince de Beaumont is certainly not a great writer. Beaumont wrote Beauty and the Beast in eighteenth-century France during the reign of Louis XV. It was a time when the enormous bourgeoisie population was slowly growing in independent wealth, yet remained grossly overtaxed and starved. These peasants were systematically excluded from the aristocracy and the workings of government. France was a stronghold of the dying feudal-influenced monarchy system, in which the king declared himself an absolute monarch with the divine right to rule as

I’ve focused on three art pieces which are so beautiful to me. The statue of The Maltese Virgin and Child at the Chancery House with the virgin holding baby in her arms with both looking into the sky, a Byzantine painting from the Byzantinscher Maler Jahrhunderts with the virgin holding child in her lap with baby looking at her and virgin looking at us and lastly, a marble statue located at The Metropolitan Museum of Art of the virgin sitting down holding child in her lap looking into baby’s eyes and baby looking into hers.

Marie de France begins her story by describing Bisclavret, her main character, as well as defining what a werewolf is: “a ferocious beast which, when possessed by this madness, devours men, causes great damage and dwells in vast forests” (de France, 68). She wants to relate the two by allowing the reader to decide what she means by the descriptions and why she would correlate them. De France does a little play and twists the monsters throughout her story. Being a werewolf, Bisclavret may start out as a monster without; and, at first, his wife seems to be so beautiful and innocent, but there lied a monster within her. Later in the story, Bisclavret is no more than a human being, and his wife’s monstrousness shows from within and she transforms into a monster without. The themes gathered from this story are the relationship between love and suffering, justice, and the wife who may be at first likable, but then changes the way that “monsters” are viewed. In order to modify the stereotypes of what a monster is, de France made Bisclavret, a werewolf, the “good guy,” and his beautiful wife, an unforeseen “bad guy.” The wife in the story Bisclavret portrays a trustworthy, loving wife, until she reacts quite differently to him being honest with whom he really is. Her character is the very thing, which makes the reader reconsider the definition of a monster and the truth about monsters within.

Throughout history people have made a name for themselves by their actions. From Napoleon to Amelia Earhart, individuals have been recognized through their accomplishments. The faithful Joan of Arc has done the same. Joan broke through the boundaries for women of her time and, consequently, is one of the most famous young women in history. This statement is profoundly accurate because she was such a young girl with an extremely powerful devotion to God. But just how did Joan’s intense dedication to God influence her brief life?

Boom! The door flies open and a handsome knight runs into the room and yells, “Come my lady we must go now, for he is on his way”. The lady jumps to her feet and says “My love whom is on their way?” he responds, “your husband is on the way and he has heard of our romance”. The couple joins hands and quickly runs through the castle hoping that they are not seen. Suddenly the king jumps from a dark shadow, stops the couple in a sudden halt, and says, “Where do you think you are going?” With no response from the lady, the king reaches to his side and pulls a rope that releases a large bucket of acid onto the queen and her secret lover, which eats their bodies flesh within minutes only leaving the two skeletons holding each other’s hands. This

Jeanne d’Arc, or La Pucelle, the Maid of Orleans became a national heroine and patron saint of France in the fifteenth century. She was born to Isabelle de Vouthon and Jacques Darc, small peasant farmers in the town of Domremy, near Champagne. She was the youngest of five children, and grew up learning to attend in the fields and housekeeping duties. She was quite skilled in sewing and spinning. Although illiterate, Joan was taught about religion and was known to be a pious child who spent a lot of time in prayer and petition, often kneeling in the church in quiet humility. People in her community thought of Joan as exceptionally advanced and mature for her age and had the reputation of being a tender hearted

I have always been intrigued with the Mona Lisa, I don’t know why but there is something about her smile and her eyes that captivates me. The realness of the painting and how ordinary the Mona Lisa is the reason why I can look at this painting with great joy, it doesn’t make me think too much, it doesn’t confuse me, the simplicity and the normalcy of this painting is what I enjoy so much. However, after an analysis you can see that the painting isn’t so ordinary.

The art and beauty in this painting is exemplified through the eyes of Boucher. It starts with a beautiful couple taking a rest after picking up some followers. Their clothing looks very elegant and colorful which shows that they are aristocrats. The man’s eyes are gazing at a shepherdess who gathered her own flowers. Their eyes are locked despite the man having his own woman right in front of him. The light brushstrokes of the dresses, flowers, and trees

Boucher’s subtle use of brushstrokes successfully achieved the smooth transition of colors. The bright, warm, delicate colors had built up a relaxed atmosphere for this rustic landscape painting. The young lady in the center was lit up by her light colored dress and the blush on her cheeks; the young man lying on the rock stands out from the

One as an individual can see that Bouguereau meaning or description of the painting he is trying to give is the purity and love that is shown by the elder sister seated on the rock holding her younger brother. The painting can be easily known to be an abstraction for trying to communicate with us visual. So that we are able to recognize what the painter is trying to communicate to us.