Rhapsodies

Today’s sketch is another one from the RISD Museum‘s main gallery. Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, Portrait of Antoine-Georges-Francois deChabaud-Latour and Family. 1806
This one is fun. Not only is it a beautifully crafted piece, that took me an hour to get right, but it’s an example what I like to think of as literalism in portraits. What I mean is that either the artist meant to put an editorial comment into the painting, or it was something he missed, engrossed in every tiny detail, or it’s just the case of our future eyes misunderstanding what a creator from a couple of centuries past was going for… My point is that the painting tells us something that the artist probably hadn’t intended.
This is why I like this piece. Clearly Mr. Barbier-Walbonne created what he was commissioned to do, paint the portrait of a successful plantation owner who was the proud paterfamilias to his family. But when I look at this painting my eyes continue to be drawn back to the children… Who are clearly bored out of their minds.