Oh, hi there! Welcome back to your Friday Afternoon Challenge: Scene Stealers!

[CTyankee]

47. I see the progression in the Adelfelt work! Esp. the woman arranging

the little girls hair! As a mother and grandmother of 3 girls I see that so well! And you are right, Adelfelt humanizes the scene so much more than Manet, ever the flaneur...

Well, I am no teacher really. I am as much as student as you are. I go into the library and pull books out of the shelves and read and read. That is my only expertise and there is no academic rigor to it (and there should be because I have a Masters degree in Liberal Studies and I know the value of academic rigor).

Your last two examples move us into the sphere of impressionism. Which, if I read art history right (as a total amateur) the Nabis found themselves in, was another place to break out of eventually. Didn't people just get tired of the "effect of light" on any subject and want to move on to new substantive ideas? Or perhaps just relate to how the decorative arts could enrich us (even in the face of photographic realism)? I do wonder even as I see the impressionists touch and how much it means to us, even today in our modern world of alienation...