100 Works Of Art I Like # Post 2
Title: Spring
Artist: Frances MacDonald MacNair
Date: 1900-05
Type: Watercolour on linen
Size: 83.0 x 124.0
I must admit that I am quite obsessed with this... I am pretty sure the reason is the use of purple (I am addicted to that colour)... I really like this picture..
Some History Background: It was made as a joint project she and her sister did: The Four Seasons. Frances did Spring and Autumn while Margaret did Summer and Winter while they were studying at the Glasgow School Of Art.
To be honest this is not the most representative picture for Spring for me... I do see why is it made to be Spring now that I know the title but I don't think the idea of Spring would have come to my mind immediately after seeing it. However this does not stop it from being a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful sight for the eyes.
I especially love their clothes... the way their dresses end. And the flowers on the purple background are really pretty too! If anyone is reading this, do you think that the purple thing is something they are holding and bringing in slowly to the world... thus the world has Spring or is it just a background... from what I see it seems that they are opening something and the spring comes out... thus the greenish part behind the purple one...and isn't it weird that the colour that Frances chose is purple? I love the colour but isn't it also a colour that represents mourning... that's what my granma told me at least... if that's the case, then it creates a paradox with the idea or rebirth that Spring as a season represents... I suppose though that if they are opening a box then the purple could be connected with winter and they are pulling it down for spring to come.... the green... but still.. I think it's really worth noting that this colour dominated the picture even though I don't find it so fitting for spring compared to others...
And one more thing that I noticed... do you think that at the right side of the picture, at the cornet above the end of the right woman's dress, there is a mistake? Because the in between is painting the same colour as the dress while at the other side it's not...
I am being paranoid maybe but I really wanted to ask this... sorry XD
I personally think that this would be an amazing cover for a diary-like notebook. Or a children's book that has something to do with magical women.... like fairies or elves or sires or naiads... these two women could certainly be tree naiads or lake/river naiads in my mind...
I found as I was looking around at the net a really interesting theory about how the MacDonald sisters visually created equality between men and women.. it says about how teh women in their works, although you clearly know they are women, you do not see the common female figure so it makes them seem a bit androgynous indicating that they hide within them the strength that males have as well without loosing their feminine identity.. and it talked about this work and the other three that accompany it... the work is in a metalic frame that the sisters also created and when you look it at with the frame, that in my mind should be considered as an extension of the work, you see a contrast between the watercolour style and the frame indicating also this difference of feminine and masculine... and their possible mixture perhaps, their co existence and the necessity of one another.
Again I really am fascinated with this picture and everything that could be behind its idea... I don't see it connected with any major fandom in any way so far but I can certainly see stories that could be unfold.. like children's books with mother nature, her daughters, forests and a battle that will never end between the seaons.. how one wants to push the other away so they will rule... and because of that battle there are months that seem to have (at some places at least) characteristics of two seasons... but I don't know... I haven't really thought of it but I know it's there... in my mind at least.