Another Lucky Find

While repairing a book on the life and paintings of Jean Fragonard, I was happy to stumble upon such a beautiful painting. A fair amount of his paintings were of cherubs and fairies, wealthy lovers and fat, rosy cheeked children, and lacked a certain depth that usually attracts me to a piece of art. But this particular painting manages to reflect Fragonard's warmth and cheerfulness, while still portraying a believable moment in a girl's life. The attitude and expression of the girl's face is far more natural seeming to me than many posed smiles or lofty looks in other portraits of the same era. I imagine that the girl was told to pose while reading and, if she were anything like myself and it was even a half-decent book, she became caught up in the story and forgot to affect a look of coy enjoyment or sophisticated contempt. The rich, warm, yellow tones of the painting are very appealing and make the girl seem far more real and breathe life into the painting. I love working in a place where one day I can just happen to find a painting that I love, and the next day and I run across a beautiful poem, and then next day I can get sucked into reading a new and exciting story. Not to mention the amazing things it has done for my stores of random trivia knowledge.

The Reader by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Wind and Window Flower by Robert Frost

LOVERS, forget your love,
  And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
  And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
  Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
  Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
  He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
  To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
  Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
  And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
  He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
  Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
  To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
  And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
  And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
  A hundred miles away

Its beautiful and terrifying at the same time