Weekly beauty: Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun

During my recent trip to Kansas City, I visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, my favorite thing to do in that city.

The Nelson-Atkins has several paintings by Pissarro, Van Gogh, and Monet that I could contemplate for hours, and I did spend some time with them. But on this trip, what really stopped me in my tracks was this painting, "The Duchess of Caderousse" (1784), by Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun:





When I say "stopped me in my tracks," I mean that quite literally. It probably took me 8 or 10 minutes to tear myself away. I love when art or music really gets me in its grip like that.

This is the same artist whose work jumped out at me for visio divina during my summer retreat. There is just something exceptionally compelling about her portraits of women. They seem to have so much more spirit than most other portraits of the same era. Their faces really say something. Further evidence:


"Portrait of a Young Woman" (1797)




"Madame Vigee Le Brun and her Daughter" (1789)


See more Elizabeth Le Brun (whose name seems to come in a million iterations) on Google.