Georges-Pierre Seurat’s “The Circus”

Hello lovely ladies!

 

I find myself running short on time this week again (this whole "being a grownup" thing can be quite challenging at times!), but wanted to let you know that your first week of school pictures are totally adorable – you're both looking quite awesomely intellectual as you head off into the 2014-2015 school year!  How smart you must be getting!  Tell me about what you're learning these days!

 

Since I'm having a crazy week, I've chosen my artist based on a specific theme.  There is an old Polish proverb (which basically means "expression") that goes "Not my monkeys; not my circus."  This is one of my favorite expressions of all time.  Literally, it's saying something like "hey, I didn't show up with these monkeys, so you can't blame me for the chaos they're causing"… you can apply that to a lot of things in life – when things get crazy due to stuff that's completely beyond your control, rather than letting that make you nuts, you can just think, "hey, not my monkeys, not my circus" and decide to enjoy the show instead of stressing out about it.

So this is Georges-Pierre Seurat's "The Circus" – it was the very last painting he ever worked on.  He lived in the late 1800s (I might have already done a different painting of his...I need to start keeping a list so I don't repeat!) and believed that happiness could be painted by using lots of warm colors, and by the use of lines directed upward, and sadness by using dark and cold colors and lines that point down.  See how this painting is mostly reds and yellows (warm colors) and artsy people would say the lines point up because the circus people kind of make  a triangle that points to the top of the painting…I'm not so sure I agree on that, since a line that points up on one end is pretty much pointing down on the other, but hey, that's why I'm not an art historian.  J

That's all for now – know that I love you and think that you're awesome.

Hugs and kisses,

Auntie Paula