Yale Center for British Art

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One whole bay on the 4th floor at the Yale Center for British Art is dedicated to pieces that depict untimely deaths. The first is a painting done after the death of a little girl, age 6, and is depicted as a memory next to her mother.

Another from this bay is "Portrait of an Elderly Woman and a Girl" which indicates the death of the mother of the young girl, daughter of the elderly woman.

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"Selling Guinea Pigs" caught my attention because it's companion, "Dancing Dogs", is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I'm looking forward to tracking it down when I go there in a couple of weeks. Other than that, I like the story this piece tells - a poor man going door to door selling pet Guinea Pigs trying to earn a buck and the little girls trying to convince their mother to let them have one - and the man hoping they succeed.

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The next 2 paintings were favorites of mine mainly due to their use of color. In the case of the "Winter Landscape" I like how the lack of color enunciates the few items in the painting which have colors.

Another from the bay of pieces depicting untimely deaths is a marble statue of a boy, William La Marchant, who died at the young age of 16 and the parents hired this artist to create his likeness in a bust. During this time period, the only thing the artists had to go on for a project like this is verbal descriptions from loved ones. This must have been tremendously difficult to do. Although the death of young people was more common in earlier times, the difficulty for a parent to deal with the grieving was no less than it would be today seemingly because they went to great lengths to memorialize them (sculptures, paintings, etc.)

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"The Death of Lucretia" was probably my favorite piece at the museum because there are so many emotions portrayed here and they felt like they were jumping off the painting at me. Grief, sorrow, anger, hatred, revenge...there are so many things going on here and I almost felt them all.

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The next piece is an oil painting "John Michael Rysbrack, Modeling His Terracotta Statue of Hercules". I just thought it was cool that the subject of one piece of art became another.

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"Fish Market" was fascinating to me simply for it's historical value. I made a note about this painting that artists today must have much more difficulty finding subjects that portray something that was once so everyday (catching and selling fish) that can be appealing in a painting.

"Academy by Lamplight", shown below, captured my attention because I was intrigued by the obvious adoration the student has for the sculpture and how the artist could be alluding to the myth explained about King of Cyprus falling in love with a statue of Venus which came alive in answer to his prayers.