toodle-oo for now...

I will be away for the weekend, returning on Sunday, so please don't expect me to post before then. 
Going to attend a baby shower for my as-yet-unborn niece, due in September. Very excited--who wouldn't be?I have never been an aunt before! My sister-in-law doesn't want any pink, so it took some ingenuity to make some baby items for her. I used an absolutely gorgeous brown, lavender, red and white. 


We like babies here. And children. They can be *extremely* annoying but also keep life from becoming stagnant..........as do teenagers. I know that from first-person experience. LOL.


Just ramblings....so, as is my wont when inspiration fails me, I will post a lovely painting and a not-so-lovely painting.

"Shepherdess with her Flock" by Jean-Francois Millet. 1863.
(I'm assuming "millay" rather than "millett" as it is French, but feel free to pronounce as you see fit!)


A lovely realistic painting of a French peasant girl. The girl is quite young, and the heathered tones of the painting are beautiful. And as a shepherdess myself, I can appreciate its realism. 
*Click on photo/s to make them larger*
Side note: When my mom was this painting she said "Oh look! She's knitting!" If you look closely you can see that the young shepherdess is indeed knitting: a sock in the round, on four needles. This made my mother, an inveterate sock knitter, overjoyed. 


~~~~~
Now contrast it to this truly horrifying painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard. Notice the dreamy looking sheep, whose face resembles a child, and who possesses a fleece of impossible whiteness. A real sheep would never consent to be away from the rest of the flock (in the right-hand bottom corner). It would be baa-ing it's silly head off, rather than dreamily admiring the basket of flowers. (Unless it was sedated?)
 And the shepherdess, with her plump white hands, goofy silk dress, and snowy bosom, looks like she never did a lick of work in her whole life. Seriously. I hate that shepherding was so romanticized  by those out-of-it romantics  This type of painting was extremely popular at one time (early 1800s) , and was enjoyed probably by the same ilk as Marie Antoinette, who was playing on a be-ribboned hobby farm while the real peasants were starving. 

Real shepherds are like the top painting. Shepherding, or indeed any type of farming, isn't for the faint of heart. It is a dirty, complicated job which requires are patient constitution and a love for the animals, in this case sheep. It is not the kind of job where you can sit whispering words of love to your male companion while wearing an extremely tight dress and while petting a (sedated?) sheep.....
Rant finis.


What paintings do you like? LMK in a comment! Also LMK how you liked the new format. I like it. 


Anyway.....that is it for now!


Auf weidersehn, das Leser.


~ Diana, another sock-knitting shepherdess