ruby@m... wrote:
>There is a wonderful painting in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris called "the
>Floor Planers" done in 1875 and it shows 3 barefoot and shirtless
>workers refinishing a floor. At the time it was rejected for its "crude
>realism" and "vulgar subject matter". One critic even said of the "that
>is so accurate that it makes it bourgeois".

This is getting radically off-topic, but there are a number of
interesting studies examining the differences in the depiction of
individuals in paintings and in photography as that medium became
common.

The change was particularly striking when the subject was the day-to-day
life of common working folks. Even when laborers are obviously posed --
and it is likely that the subjects may have been spiffed up for the occasion--
the difference is typically significant between what the camera shows
and the pristine, idyllic world in paintings at the same time.

>Perhaps no one wanted to admit that workers needed to be comfortable in
>their work and they inaccurately portrayed them for the sake of
>propriety?

Or more generally, I think that traditionally most folks have not wanted
to look too closely at the accurate details of where most of the items
in their comfortable world come from.

>Ed Minch
>
>See the painting at:
>
>http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-
>focus/painting/commentaire_id/the-floor-planers-
>7164.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%-
>5D=841&cHash=72e9505792
>
>  Don McConnell  wrote:
>
> > Gaynor & Hagedorn, in _Tools, Working Wood in Eighteenth-Century
> > America_, c. 1993, reproduce an oil painting, ca. 1725, entitled
> > "The Carpenter's Yard," by Jack Laguerre. In it, all of the
> > carpenters are shown wearing breeches, aprons, stockings, shoes and
> > shirts. Only the master and his client are wearing waistcoats and
> > coats.
> >
> > It may well have been that nearly all men wore waistcoats and coats
> > when "in public," which might explain the descriptions of runaway
> > apprentices as wearing coats, etc. Besides, it could have been the
> > easiest way to carry them. But this painting clearly indicates that
> > they could be shed, depending on the weather I suppose, while
> > actually at work.
> >
> > Don McConnell Eureka Springs, AR
> >
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