Why Most of the People in the Paintings Are All Sulking?
An introduction to the smile in painting
I have a little question for you to start with. Have you ever wondered why most of the people in the paintings are all sulking? Why do we never see them smile? Because I did. It shocked me once when I was lost in the galleries of the Louvre. I stumbled upon a work by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and I remember something happened in my brain. I was very surprised to see that she was smiling, to see that her daughter was also smiling and that she was smiling with her teeth, something even rarer. So why was I so surprised by the sight of this painting?
While the representation of feelings is almost the ultimate quest of art and artists, the smile was frowned upon. However, the smile is a key element of our communication, so we expect to see it in artworks, just as we see it in life. And yet, it is not. Or almost.
A few weeks later, after my visit to the Louvre, I worked more precisely on the work of this talented French artist, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and I discovered that the smile is one of the characteristics of her work. So I did some research, and I realized, although it’s relatively obvious, that it’s super rare to see figures smiling in paintings. And I found it so fascinating that I wanted to talk about it with you, to create…
