Cecilia Beaux and relationships

Portrait clients sometimes are faced with the dilemma of whether to have a multiple portrait (say of a mother and child or of two children) painted or to go with two separate portraits, one of each individual. Thus, I am often asked what the aesthetic difference is between the two. The answer is simple: a multiple portrait is about relationships.

During a recent visit to Philadelphia I took in the Cecilia Beaux exhibit. I was mesmerized by the wonderful display of her work, taking in as much as I could, though for me there's a point where I just can't take any more, similar to enjoying only a few Godiva chocolates at a time. Ever since I saw Beaux's portrait Ernesta with Nurse years ago I've been taken by her amazing work. Of all painters, Beaux is one of my top ten- maybe even in the top five. She paints with such confidence, as we can see in her strokes. Yet, she also displays the sensitivity of Mary Cassatt, as you can see in the picture of her painting Mrs. Stedman Buttrick and Son John.

Can you feel the pride, love, and even the amusement the mother has for her little boy? You can also sense the boy's playful sense of surprise and intrigue with his mother, as well as the security that children have with their mother (ask any dad who his child looks for when they've just gotten a boo-boo, even if Dad is standing right there, ready to help. It's still "Mommy!? I'm hurt! Where's Mommy?" Dad: "Hey, I'm here. What's wrong?" "...Mommy!" Dad: "(Sigh)...She's upstairs.").

Beaux takes a mother-child portrait from a simple record of persons to a sharing of a wondrous eavesdropping of joy, and does so with no apology of craftsmanship. I know without question that this portrait elicited much more response from visitors to the Buttrick home than would one of a more proper (i.e. staid?) pose and composition. If, for instance, the mother had been looking at the viewer instead of leaning back to take in her son, we would have lost the obvious expression of love, and instead, as a viewer of the scene, would have assumed (and hoped) that such a love actually existed.

What a great portrait!