What’s Hanging on the Walls Edition

So, here’s what’s hanging on the walls in our house – aside from dirt, kid prints, cobwebs, and errant crayon marks. This is a glimpse at most of the artwork in our home. I confess to knowing very little about art – from creating to appreciating to buying. In this brief look, our tastes seem pretty narrow: one French romantic, religious artwork, and pop movie posters. Perhaps if we had the wall space, money, and leisure to devote to it, we could enhance our home with some more inspiring pieces, but in this season of life, I’m just happy if I’m not scraping dried food from the wall. (Yeah, I’m looking at you, toddler boy.)

*The Bouguereau images and movie posters look even better matted and framed, but I’m incapable of taking a decent picture of them without glare and reflections. So, you get the official, unframed images here.

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My husband and I indulged in a brief but passionate love affair with all things by French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.I still marvel at the realism with which he captures women and children in particular. On a visit to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Hay-Maker captivated me. There is truly something special about viewing an original piece with your own eyes without the filter of a screen or a print. The Nymphaeum hangs in our living room. It’s a rather dark painting, but if you look closely, you can see a man in the underbrush surrounding this pond spying on the skinny dipping ladies.

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Le Printemps if the second Bouguereau painting in our living room. I love the chubby cherubs encircling the woman.

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Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros rounds out the collection in the living room. I love the contrast between the solid, angular stone on which she sits and the soft curves of the young woman and the cherub.

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This too-large-for-our-wall print of the Madonna of the Roses hangs in our dining room. Before the buffet sitting beneath it became a cluttered mess that draws every eye to its gross disarray, this painting caught the attention of everyone who passed through the room. After Our Lady of Perpetual Help, this might be my favorite rendering of the Blessed Mother and the Child Jesus. I’ve spent several nights holding a fussy newborn in a dimly-lit room looking into the eyes of Jesus and his mother. The best part is – we got this through Sam’s Club. Believe it or not.

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Being Catholic, we have several crucifixes throughout our home. A lovely pewter and wood one, a gift from the priest who witnessed our marriage, hangs above our bed. This one was my mother’s rummage sale find. Before we jammed an unused sewing table beneath it, I would pass by it in our upstairs hall and occasionally to stop to place a kiss on Christ’s feet.

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Moving on to my oldest son’s bedroom we’ve got part one of our homage to George Lucas. This movie poster from Star Wars: The Clone Wars goes perfectly with the blue tones in his room. A recent addition was this Indiana Jones movie poster, relocated from what will become the girls’ bedroom. I like the warm tones of the poster even if the movie paled in comparison to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Finally, these two beautiful icons were written by our friend Lora Owings. The first is a guardian angel given to our oldest on his baptism. The second is, I believe, one of the first icons Lora wrote, a madonna and child. (It’s a Theotokos (Mother of God) Eleusa. Here is an explanation. Thank you, Lora!) They are both quite beautiful!

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