First, I would like to thank the readers who sent me well wishes, support, and comments on the first article in my discussion of Art and the Female Breast. I would also like to thank the many friends and colleagues who sent me books, articles, clothing, food and the others who shared with me their personal journey through cancer. The surgery is now behind me and I’m awaiting the pathology report on the mass and lymph nodes that were removed last Thursday. In the meantime, I wanted to continue my discussion and share with you one particular email that I received from Nina Baldwin, an artist from Rio Rancho.
In the email, Baldwin draws a connection to the Madonna and Child paintings by William Adolphe Bouguereau, the prolific French painter from the nineteenth century who was a mainstay of the Realism art movement, when she writes, his “Madonna paintings portray the female, fully clothed . . . all full of fabulous beauty . . . full of allurement, mystery, life, power, nurturing . . . full of spirit . . . truly beautiful!” According to Wikipedia, Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects, both pagan and Christian, with a concentration on the female human body. He employed traditional methods of working up a painting, including detailed pencil studies and oil sketches, and his careful method resulted in a pleasing and accurate rendering of the human form. His painting of skin, hands, and feet was particularly admired. The idealized world of his paintings, brought to life goddesses, nymphs, bathers, shepherdesses, and madonnas. Bouguereau painted plenty of naked women, but it was the ones he painted of them clothed which were particularly striking and inspirational. 
Baldwin also shared her mother’s story of a mastectomy at 48 years old and how she survived and went on to live a full life only to pass away in her 70’s from heart disease. Baldwin writes, “It is the spirit of the woman which far surpasses all beauty and goodness found in any part of the body . . . truly, it is your spirit which is beautiful, sparkly, fun, wise, miraculous, alluring, mystifying, nurturing and powerful . . . your spirit is the source of all that good.” Baldwin’s email truly touched me and uplifted me. Can you find the beauty and allure in these Madonna and Child paintings?
Gale O’Brien lives in New Mexico surrounded by the love and support of her friends. Follow her blog Passione Per L’Arte at www.passionateforart.blogspot.com.
Photo credits: Barbara Longhi, google.com; William-Adolphe Bouguereau, wikipedia.com and google.com; Trent Burleson, http://burlesonart.blogspot.com
