\u201cPardon me, Madame,\u201d I say in French to a lady framed in the Crocker Art Museum. \u201cMay I ask you a few questions?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou can see I\u2019m busy, I reckon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYes, but you\u2019ve been at this task a long time and I thought you could take a little break.\u201d <\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019ll keep working, go ahead and ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe label notes this Guy Rose painting from 1890 is titled Food for the Laborers. A peasant woman sits heavily and forward in her chair, and a gold-colored pan on the floor holds vegetables she\u2019ll cut. She\u2019s already been cutting with the knife in her right hand. A frying pan\u2019s hot on an open fire in a darkened room dreary as her hair wrapped in a soiled off-white cap. She\u2019s wearing a long work-skirt the same color and a saggy blue blouse. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a Guy Rose painting at all like this,\u201d I say. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019ve never seen this one or any other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cLater, he usually painted seascapes and landscapes as well as commission portraits of perfect young ladies. He lived in Giverny for several years and was a good friend of Claude Monet, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI don\u2019t know or care anything about men who made lots of money painting pretty pictures for rich people. But I wondered why he\u2019d want to paint me working here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe made a great artistic decision, painting realistically instead of fantasies of young women and nature at its most sublime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cProbably didn\u2019t make much money on this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAt the time, probably not. He evidently got away from psychologically penetrating scenes by the twentieth century. I wish he\u2019d continued like this. He was only about twenty-three.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI remember he was a young fellow, an American who spoke passable French.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cDid he seem unhealthy? When he was a kid one of his brothers accidentally shot him in the face while they hunted in California.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe looked a little off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI think that affected him all his life. Back in the United States, a stroke paralyzed him in his mid-fifties and he died a few years later. How did your life work out?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAbout like you\u2019d expect.\u201d<\/p>\n