This one is a little art history joke that just tickles me. Here’s the story:
When I came across this green apple in my stash of stuff, it triggered an association with the Magritte painting of the man in a bowler hat with an apple in front of his face. I looked up that painting and learned from Wikipedia that it is called “The Son of Man” and that Magritte was interested in the tension between the visible and the hidden. Magritte is quoted as saying, “It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.”
The fact that the painting’s title is “The Son of Man” - a phrase which entirely erases the role of women in the production of children - seemed to me to be a perfect example of how women in general, and mothers in particular, are so often hidden in plain sight - rendered invisible by our tendency to take them for granted.
And that led me to create this little scene where I imagined the Son of Man coming home to Mom’s house. He sets his apple on the sky-stand, hangs up his hat and tie, and goes in to eat a dinner prepared by his mother. Mom’s portrait hangs on the wall, and though she wears a bonnet instead of a bowler hat, just like Son her face is mostly obscured (by a butterfly instead of an apple). Above the butterfly, her eyes are just enough exposed to reveal a calm, knowing gaze of one who is used to being unseen.
In the design of Mom’s hallway, I tried to echo the horizontal layers of brown and grey from the original painting, and the drippy blue paint over the white wallpaper is meant to echo the blotchy sky of the original. (I included an image of the original paintings so you can compare.)
This one is a little art history joke that just tickles me. Here’s the story:
When I came across this green apple in my stash of stuff, it triggered an association with the Magritte painting of the man in a bowler hat with an apple in front of his face. I looked up that painting and learned from Wikipedia that it is called “The Son of Man” and that Magritte was interested in the tension between the visible and the hidden. Magritte is quoted as saying, “It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.”
The fact that the painting’s title is “The Son of Man” - a phrase which entirely erases the role of women in the production of children - seemed to me to be a perfect example of how women in general, and mothers in particular, are so often hidden in plain sight - rendered invisible by our tendency to take them for granted.
And that led me to create this little scene where I imagined the Son of Man coming home to Mom’s house. He sets his apple on the sky-stand, hangs up his hat and tie, and goes in to eat a dinner prepared by his mother. Mom’s portrait hangs on the wall, and though she wears a bonnet instead of a bowler hat, just like Son her face is mostly obscured (by a butterfly instead of an apple). Above the butterfly, her eyes are just enough exposed to reveal a calm, knowing gaze of one who is used to being unseen.
In the design of Mom’s hallway, I tried to echo the horizontal layers of brown and grey from the original painting, and the drippy blue paint over the white wallpaper is meant to echo the blotchy sky of the original. (I included an image of the original paintings so you can compare.)
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