The Tory Party

A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros

1880. By William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Click for larger version.

I saw this painting at the North Carolina Museum of Art many years ago and it asploded my brain. It’s big — like, life-size big. The skin textures are totally sick. The circular composition, the diagonal of her arms, their exquisitely rendered figures. And the expressions on their faces — I mean, what on earth is going on here? How do they feel about it? What was happening thirty seconds ago? It’s so eye-meltingly beautiful and bizarrely staged, like, I think I’ll go sit nude on a cold stone in the garden a while. Hey, here comes a kid with an arrow. He’s, like, coming right for me. I’d take him more seriously if he had a bow or something, but I’m sure he’s just messing around. Woh ho ho kiddo! No can does!

It’s like that dream I had where I was play-wrestling with Shia LaBeouf in someone’s living room. And I was like, whoa, wait, which Shia LaBeouf are you? Are you Shia LaBeouf from “Even Stevens”? Or Shia LaBeouf from the new Indiana Jones movie? And I looked and it was the former, so I was like, “Okay, we have to stop.”

Anyhoo. I sat on the little bench in front of it for like ten minutes.

I tried to remember the title, but it is so oddly self-explanatory I couldn’t rightly remember it. And the artist’s name must be covered in oleo, cos it slipped right outta my brains. Trouble is, if you don’t know the artist or title, a painting is hella hard to Google.

The next time I went back to the museum, the painting was no longer there.

So one day I was Googlin’ something random, like “zombie apocalypse,” and lo and beholds THERE IT IS MY PAINTING MY PRETTY PAINTING!

OH MAN IT IS JUST AS NUTS AS I REMEMBER IT!

Look at how nuts this painting is! IT IS NUTS.

There are more paintings at the Wikipedia page, but they will absorb your eyeballs and you’ll never leave the house again.

Incidentally — I am also totally into Alphons Mucha, so I may just have a special enzyme for Art Nouveau, and high-waisted lassies with Gibson Girl hair and Mary Pickford leeps. Prescribe poppy diadem immeds.