She did not seek this role. She contemplated her pose, the way her body was placed rigidly on the dais inside the carefully staged script. Why had they shaved her head, bleached her skin until it reflected like the porcelain doll they placed on the stiff folds of her heavy cape? Who had created this idea of an infant, disproportionate and so unlike any real child?
The crown, heavy and ill-suited to her countenance, threatened to tumble from its uneasy perch. As did her entire being from the painted backdrop, so eerie and haunted—the flattened throne, the red demon angels who lacked either substance or joy. The wall behind it all, painted blue to match her skimpy dress, conjured no images of either nature or heavenly dream.
And why expose a breast that could neither give sustenance or be received by an artists’ idea of a child? Real children were indeed holy, scared even, alive in all their chaotic glory. Real angels were full of light, kin to birds, to the cosmos that shone in the actual sky. A real mother would be full of the earth, flesh blood and breath.
She thought of seeds being planted, how the light returns each year to bring the world to life. She longed to be standing, unadorned, down there, amidst the cacophony of this crowded orb.
circle dance
a child comes to be
and welcome
Jean Fouquet’s Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels was the Ekphrastic Review prompt challenge this week. My haibun was not chosen, but even among the ones published on the website today, there was some ambivalence about this representation of mother and child. I obviously had more than some. You can read the selections on the website here, and Jane Dougherty’s responses to the painting, here.
K. 
It’s certainly not a naturalistic painting is it? I defy any infant to be that close to a breast full of milk and ignore it!
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Indeed! It’s strange in every respect.
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Yes! Good one. You pull back the drapery in this and find nothing behind but stage props. There is nothing maternal about the woman and nothing childlike about the baby. She’s looking at him as if he’s something nasty a passing bird dropped on her. The painting beneath is so much more a mother and child. A real mother and real child. Is it one of yours?
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Thanks Jane. Yes, it’s my painting.
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It has warmth.
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totally agree with your take on this very ‘artificial’ portrait … so unnatural that it doesn’t inspire me at any level!
Your art is far more nurturing and natural!
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Thanks Kate.
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I really like your piece, and I agree with all the comments above. I think I told I told you once that older daughter and I have had this game walking through museums pointing out the weird breasts and ugly babies. 😏 But you really go beyond that. Nicely done. I like your painting–it definitely depicts a real relationship between a mother and child.
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Thanks Merril. I’m sure you have plenty of material in you museum visits!
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😀
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Kerfe, I agree with you and others — the painting is grotesque! Your painting is real and alive and warm.
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Thanks Betty. Its a strange rendering of motherhood.
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There is such a world of worry in the face of your mother. As for Fouquet, wow; I got a serious chill looking at that — which your haibun captured perfectly. And I thought the angels looked demonic too. If this had been painted recently or in the 20th c. people would interpret it as quite the opposite of devotional!
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Thanks Sun, I think that’s true. No room for irony when it was painted though…
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