Sunday, September 13, 2015

Preternatural Children Department





A slightly odd version of the standard circa 1900 French 'pretty child' postcard genre.  The blowsy hair and the tension in the arrangement of the mouth--a slightly curled lip on one side and raised nostril--makes this sequin-speckled girl strangely "adult" in presentation.  There's a critical dimension, a kind of incipient bluestocking-ism, here that puzzles.  Puzzles me, at least.