The Middle Figure

This whole figure painting enterprise has changed the way that I look at paintings, as well as which paintings I look at. For instance I have found French and Dutch genre painting infinitely nourishing. Watteau, Greuze, and Steen (pictured above) painted some crazily posed figures ripe for the taking. I tell students, other people's students (I am like a bad uncle that drinks), that when they get stuck just take the day off and go borrowing at the museum. No shame in that. That is, while they aren't working at a public library, which I also encourage newly minted MFAs to do.