Aspirations

My mother was by no means an intellectual, yet she had aspirations to behave like one, bless her heart. When I was growing up, our home had art on the walls and sculpture on the furniture, even though many times we barely had enough to eat. I remember these two paintings were framed on the walls as prints for many years in her home. The Picasso print hangs in my home now, as of recently. All these years I thought the other print was by Rembrandt, and I'm pretty sure that's how it was labeled. But in looking it up, I see that it's really by Samuel van Hoogstraten, a Rembrandt pupil. Oh well.

Otherwise, my exposure to painting came from the books in our home, and much of the time the artwork was reproduced in monotone or line engravings—many of which I have yet to find full color reproductions of. But they stand as compositional studies and to this day are inspirational...bless their hearts.