Description of the painting by Jean-Baptiste Chardin “Laundresses”

Description of the painting by Jean Baptiste Chardin Laundresses

Jean Baptiste Chardin painted many famous paintings, among which is the painting “Laundresses”, written in 1737.

In a dark room, only half illuminated by daylight, the foreground was painted with light and relatively bright colors. In the picture he is represented by a young laundress, a child, most likely her son, and a cat sitting with his paws tucked under him.

The girl is busy with the usual and everyday work – washing. Each of her actions have already been repeated hundreds of times, and she does not pay attention to her occupation, but only looks with a peaceful look out of the window, as if with the hope of seeing changes there soon. A simple and hard-working girl also wants to escape from the whole life around her, change the modest and gloomy room to the admiring mansion. There is even a small smile on her face, caused by all these fantasies.

The rest of the characters in the picture

are quite happy with what they have: the child enjoys the occupation that his mother invented for him – blowing soap bubbles, and the cat – a quiet sleep. Behind the door we see the second laundress hanging clothes, but we can only guess about her thoughts.

As befits a true artist, Chardin takes special care to all the details of the painting, which allow to convey all the gravities of ordinary people’s life: a wooden laundry box, a brown-black copper basin standing on the floor, a stupa – he draws all this with care painted the most picturesque portraits.

Jean Baptiste Chardin was a man who loves to work seriously, without cunning. Purposefulness, perseverance, combined with the talent he possessed by nature, allowed him to achieve great heights in the world of art. So, in this picture, he portrayed just one day from the life of the common people, watching that, any viewer will sympathize with the mother’s heavy proportion, will condescendingly smile at the child and plunge into the depth of the picture with all these household objects that are as alive as possible. convey the atmosphere of the picture.


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Description of the painting by Jean-Baptiste Chardin “Laundresses”