Urnvy

Today I was watching an internet service provider ad that illustrated a metaphor of other ISP's robbing their customers blind, and in one scene two thieves walked right past the homeowner carrying a seven foot-tall urn.  I was transported to the place where advertisers never, ever want you to go -- a million miles away from what was happening onscreen. 

"Urns," I thought. "I'm never going to have urns like that."

It's sounds silly and hardly worth comparing to the pain of realizing one is never going to be a ballerina, a fighter pilot, a circus performer or the person who patents a system for car windows to roll up from the bottom instead of from the top down, but I had assumed my adulthood would include giant urns.  They rounded out the plans I had for my future.  This future:

I saw this painting "in person" once in its 87.6 x 87.6 inch glory, I'm not sure where.  It may have been on loan at the Chicago Art Institute (very likely, but I can't find a record of where this painting traveled in the late seventies and early eighties), or maybe even at at the Louvre but I did see it in person -- and many, many times in books -- and it filled me with longing.  I wanted to walk into it and live it.  I could never be one of those four girls, but perhaps I could have a hand in creating my own version.  I could have four daughters, dress them in matching pinafores, and people would say, "Hey, just like in that Sargent painting, you know the one."

Over the years I realized that I was quickly and easily achieving what one might consider the more difficult part of the painting: the four little girls. According to Wiki, my four girls even share some personality traits of the girls in the painting (though I hope some of mine will marry).  But today, watching that ad on television, it occurred to me that I am never going to have the part of the painting I took for granted: the urns.

It's not a matter of having the room: Leah and Larry's living room cries out for enormous urns, as did Ashraf's, and as does that house in Chicago we still own (Dieter and his family, our tenants, do not have urns or four daughters).  And it's not the cost: I'm not married to the idea of having priceless antique urns.  I'm sure I could find nice-looking imitations at Pier 1 or Cost Plus.   

The problem, as it is so often, is Olive.  Heavy urns would be true hazards in our house.  Instead of The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit I'd be more likely to recreate something from the unpublished works of Edward Gorey: O is for Olive who fell head-first in an urn.  Or perhaps an alternate ending to Gorey's The Hapless Child, where the protagonist is crushed by heavy falling porcelain instead of getting run over by her own father.

What about fake urns that are really made of tin or some equally light material?  Possible, but then I envision the living room as an off-scale and incomplete bowling alley, with the two pins lying on their sides more often than not.  Mommmmmy, Olive's knocked over the urns again...

After reading about the painting's history and the interpretations of the critics, I realize I see it much differently than Sargent may have intended.  I see no melancholy there or foreshadowing of bleak futures, and certainly not, "four corners and a void." 

The daughter in the back who we see in profile is obviously my Daisy, and the sister right next to her is Agatha, narrating what the painter is doing, in real-time, for her sister who's too shy to look directly at him.

In fact, here's a photo of Daisy, looking very Boit-ish, taken by Agatha.

For the past several months Agatha has been working on her own painting from the photograph, and she's allowing us...

...a sneak-peek...

...at the work...

... in progress.

She's made me promise to let you know it's not done yet. 

I'm not sure what makes me more proud: Agatha's talent, or the fact that she looks at her sister's face and thinks, "I would like to spend many, many weeks painting her."

But back to the Sargent painting: that's Sabina on the left, making her own way, giving Sargent a bit of a stare-down.  She may be about to correct his technique.  And seated on the floor, we have who is indisputably Olive.  If you look closely, you can even see she's doing askancers-askancers.

I'd say she looks as if she's about to jump to her feet and give one of those urns a giant shove, but considering that the urns are still on display in Boston, this must not have been the case. 

Perhaps she was content to simply pull Dolly's hair from the roots.

Comments

[Tamara]

'I'm not sure what makes me more proud: Agatha's talent, or the fact that she looks at her sister's face and thinks, "I would like to spend many, many weeks painting her."'

This is one of my favorite paragraphs ever. Like all teary-eyed, that's-so-true-and-beautiful favorite. It makes me think about me and my sister, too.

[Walden121]

Such patience, dedication, and talent. Very lovely.

[Amelia]

We saw that when we went to Boston in '10 and my mum was very excited about it. Very excited about it. She had 3 daughters but was clearly aiming for 4. No urns at our house either but I imagine one could attach them directly to the floor using flanged screws and ensure that the top was closed so that the little ones couldn't toss things in. Just a thought. That painting is wonderful - what lovely girls you've got.

[Malin]

Have you noticed how the urn is the most real-looking part of the picture, almost photographic in contrast to the girls who all clearly look painted?

[Barbara]

I can hear my mom on this one: "What the heck do you want [an urn] for, anyway?"