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Artists love fat babies.
I'm not sure why, but artists throughout history have always had an affinity towards the voluptuous rolls on a fat baby. And it would seem that Mary Cassatt was no exception. This little chubster is looking quite precarious on its mother's lap, but who's going to worry about that on such a lovely day in the Mediterranean? Maybe the fat will help him float.
Though Cassatt was born in the US, she actually spent most of her life living in France, like any good artist of the times. This painting was born while she was vacationing in Southern France, an area she frequented quite often. Can you blame her? Looks like a good time to me. (No, seriously, I want someone to row me around in a boat while I wear a crazy hat. Get in touch.)
A true Cassatt painting would not be complete without a beautiful woman as the shining center of attention. Cassatt loved the ladies...and I mean that in a totally platonic way. Perhaps her infatuation with her fellow females was born out of a youthful rebellion against her father. When she began attending art school at the age of fifteen, her father objected for fear of little Mary being exposed to feminist ideals. Too little, too late. Cassatt championed women in her art and kicked ass as a female artist. Suck it, Dad.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about The Boating Party
The Boating Party is an 1893 oil painting by American artist Mary Cassatt. It has been in the collection of the National Gallery of Art since 1963.
Cassatt painted The Boating Party during the winter of 1893–1894 in Antibes, on the French Riviera. Cassatt spent January and February 1894 at the Villa "La Cigaronne," in Cap d'Antibes with her mother. Cassatt was 49 years old when she painted The Boating Party. 1893 had been a successful year for her: she had completed the mural Modern Woman, commissioned for the Woman's Building at Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; her exhibition in 1893 at Durand-Ruel's gallery had been well received (footnote: the exhibition contained 98 items.); and the French state had decided to purchase one of her paintings for the Musée du Luxembourg.
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I like this painting of the parents rowing a boat while holding a baby because it reminds me of when I was younger when my parents would take my siblings and I canoeing with us sitting in the middle as babies hardly being able to walk yet.