Mother, Child

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a preview of the exhibit "Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces From the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales" at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It's a very nice show, even if its modest scope and content seem almost at odds with the grandiosity evoked by the word "masterpiece."

One work by a painter unfamiliar to me stood out among all the rest: "Maternity (Suffering)" by Eugène Carrière. It's markedly muted, nearly monochromatic, amid the vibrant colors of Renoir, van Gogh, Manet, and the rest. I don't think I've ever seen a painting quite like it from that period (1896-97).

In a way, it's not surprising that I was drawn to it because it reminded me of a 19th-century photograph -- not a particular one, but the photographer who immediately came to mind was Julia Margaret Cameron. (It's relevant to note here that one of my favorite activities in the world is wandering through a museum exhibit of black-and-white photographs -- far more enthralling to me than any collection of paintings.)

In refreshing my memory of Cameron's work online, I see that most of her photos don't have the haziness of the Carrière painting, as I thought they did: that blur of half-recall, like one's first mental imprint of a private time with a parent -- the smell of the skin or breath, the motion of a rocker, the mysterious warmth of a hand on one's head.

I don't remember seeing the exact photograph of Cameron's at left before, but I very well might have -- why else would she have come to mind? Could I be reliving an encounter with it in a gallery from long ago? Or a moment from my own childhood? Are both of these pictures echoes of countless mothers and children through the years -- one brush, one lens, one memory after another burnishing an impression on canvas, on paper, on the farthest reaches of our eyes?