thank you so much for asking!... a Windy City weekend

art, two terrific writing prompts, and a shrimp stew for the ages, all for you!

hey-ho!

People are nicer in the midwest. Every time I asked a server, a Lyft driver, a ticket taker, a bookseller, a barista, or a participant at the terrific Chicago Writers Association Conference, how their day was going they all said, “Thanks so much for asking.” I like moving through a city of civility!

I enjoyed crisp walks along the lake with my closest childhood pal who joined me, the Architecture Boat Tour, good food, Second City Comedy, the Art Institute and Museum of Contemporary Art. All in all, a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ trip.

At the Art Institute I took myself on a treasure hunt for odalisque paintings. (Odalisque: A female slave or concubine in the harem of the Turkish sultan. An artistic representation, often highly eroticized, of such a slave.) The memoir, I’M MOSTLY HERE TO ENJOY MYSELF, by Glynnis MacNicol, (which I talked about here yet I cannot really recommend because of her vague disdain for all woman except herself and her inner circle) started me on this odalisque jag. Basically I’m interested in the way these women subjects are arranged for consumption, by the art viewer, and by the people who harbor fantasies of sexual adventures.

Jules Joseph Lefebvre French, 1836-1912 Odalisque 1874 Oil on canvas A luminous nude woman reclines in a dimly lit interior filled with fruits, textiles, and other luxury goods. To European audiences, this collection of objects would have broadly evoked the Middle East. The painting's setting and title suggest that she is a courtesan in a harem. For 19th-century European artists, depicting the nude female form was a fundamental component of academic training and a benchmark of artistic excellence. The imagined harem setting a space historically used as women's quarters and forbidden to men-provided narrative context for the nude and appealed to the sexual and colonialist fantasies of European audiences.

…

Picasso painted this one after WWII, when Europe was rebuilding:

Pablo Picasso Spanish, active France, 188I-1973 Nude under a Pine Tree 1959 Oil on canvas For many artists living amid the destruction and rebuilding of postwar Europe, artworks of the past offered a sense of continuity and order. In Nude under a Pine Tree, Pablo Picasso looked to the long tradition of figurative painting, including the female nudes of Francisco de Goya. In contrast to his predecessors, however, Picasso placed the monumental figure on rocky terrain, rather than on a plush chaise. He also used bold, modernist forms that reference his own earlier artistic styles: the flattened face, segmented legs and torso, and multiple viewpoints recall some of his Cubist works, and the color palette evokes his classical style of the I920s.

…

Max Beckman painted this of his wife, also in the odalisque style. Gosh, her face is in shadow and her breasts are highlighted. I might be pissed off if my partner chose boobs > face:

Max Beckmann German, 1884-1950 Reclining Nude 1929 Oil on canvas Reclining Nude depicts Mathilde Q. Beckmann (known as Quappi), the artist's second wife and a talented singer and violinist. During his early career spent in Germany, Max Beckmann criticized the French avant-garde; by the mid-192os, however, he began to identify with artists working in Paris, and by 1929 he was living, painting, and spending the majority of his time in the city. This painting of Quappi, nude and in a traditional artistic posture of repose, evokes similar compositions by Beckmann's contemporaries Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

…

Woman with Fans, Édouard Manet 1873. His model is Nina de Callias (1844-1884), a capricious woman, alternately elated and depressed. with a neurotic temperament that alcohol soon led her to insanity and a premature death at the age of thirty-nine. At the time of this portrait, Nina was barely thirty years old, and used to host one of the most brilliant and artistic salons in Paris. She poses in one of the "Algerian" costumes that she liked to wear to receive guests.

What I love about this Manet painting is the wry look on her face, her complete engagement. She seems to be in full capacity, tired yet certain, daring you, the viewer, to take in her face and attitude rather her body.

No shrinking violet! Not served up on a plate! This I love.

…

Finally, this painting by Suzane Valadon was not at the Art Institute, but is my favorite in the style of the odalisque. Valadon was a model for painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, from whom she learned and launched into her own painting career.

The painting "The Blue Room," 1923, takes up the codes of the odalisque to better subvert them. Here, a woman in her interior, not naked but dressed in pajamas, smoking nonchalantly, as if emancipated from the male gaze. A resolutely modern portrait of a woman, emblematic of Valadon's free style.

Notice she isn’t even looking at us. Emancipated from the male gaze indeed! No fucks to give! That is my wish for all of us.

---

Thank you paid subscribers!

If you’re a free subscriber looking for a way to say merci for this spot-of-sunshine in your inbox, it’s easy:

---

write:

I went to a terrific talk by Rachel DeWoskin - Writing Wonder: Why Asking (Not Answering) Makes Writing Move and Matter.

In her talk DeWoskin emphasized the necessity to come to our writing with wonderings rather than answers.

Wonder is an engine, an opportunity.

Begin your writing with a question in mind and then lean in, write into the darkness. What question is your work trying to answer? What is the wonder❓❓❓ and the wonder 💫 💫 💫? What would it feel like to be _______________?

(Paid subscribers, I thank you!! Please skip ahead!)

Behind the dreaded paywall - 2 great prompts and an excellent shrimp stew ! Why a paywall? Each week I bring you books, food, prompts, and good will. It takes more than a minute to put together. If you’ve been considering upping your subscription, I’d love that for both of us. And, please do reach out if you need a bit of slack due to finances. I get it. xoN