Blog Post 4

My Feelings

This Painting is called "Mendel Levin Nathanson's Elder Daughters, Bella and Hanna" It has been painted in 1820 by an artist named C. W.  Eckersberg. 
The title gives me a good insight of what is represented but I took the time to look at it in order to describe everything that it makes me feel and believe. My first question was "Who is Mendel Levin Nathanson and how many children does he have." I assume that he must have been a rich man to have a portrait of his daughters painted.  The furniture on the painting and the ladies dresses seem to confirm this feeling. However, they do not seem to be wearing any formal attire. It looks like they are in their everyday clothes and like it is a moment captured randomly from their everyday life. The lack of formality makes me believe that the paint must have been done for a personal collection more than something official. One of the girl was busy knitting while her sister  was playing with the bird, it just looks like a sweet souvenir for a loving dad whose daughters are reaching the age of getting married and leave the family nest. I chose this painting because of its colors mostly. Also because I enjoy the testimonies of past  era. I love to witness how people use to live and dress. I enjoy witnessing the duality between evolution and contemporaneity 

Search about the paint

C.W. Eckersberg used to paint portraits of the affluent citizens of Copenhagen (Sweden). Mendel Levin Nathanson, a merchant, was the artist's greatest patron during his young years and commissioned two large family portraits. In one of the two painting he painted Nathanson's two oldest daughters, Bella and Hanna in a sparingly furnished drawing room with simple panelling and furniture, including a table bearing a parrot's cage.

Symbolic readings of the painting

The parrot opens up the scene to symbolic readings. Due to their ability to imitate human voices, parrots were often seen as symbols of good breeding. A suitable allusion for a picture of two young middle-class women. However, the caged bird can also be regarded as a metaphor for the two unmarried women's sheltered situation while waiting-perhaps longing? To move out into real life.

From these explanation I understand that the girls may not have been actually posing. It could have been a work made out of the artist's mind and representation. This idea give sens to the symbolism of the caged bird. It may have been the visit of the artist on the girls' situation.