Artwork of the month: “Married Life”

27March 2012

Married life is a big deal to me, being a new husband and wanting my marriage to be successful, I tend to look at couples in happy marriages that have lasted a very long time and wonder.  Everyone has a different view on what makes a marriage a success.  For me, I want to be able to always improve the quality of our lives as a couple, and to simply maintain our happiness.  That said, I want to show you a work of art that I see as comedy, and brilliance.
The painting “Married Life” by Roger de la Fresnaye, depicts a man reading the paper and smoking a pipe with his naked wife around his arm.  That being how the artist views marriage is funny, seriously funny, and I am sure that artist laughed at it.  If you can’t see the humor in that, I can not help you.  Oddly, this painting has had a profound impact on my compositional choices over the last 10 years.  I truly admire the composition, the placement and bend of the objects, and the line work on the figures.  it is a strong cubist work, and I’ll bet the artist was proud of his little joke.  “Married Life” is hanging out at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on permanent display.  I have been lucky enough to be able to spend a great amount of time studying this work.  
Roger de la Fresnaye
French, 1885-1925
“Married Life”
1912, oil on canvas
I am a husband…
…it is the best decision I have ever made.