In the painting titled Domestic Happiness, by Lilly Martin Spencer, she brings out a very warm, heart-felt sensation of what it means to be a family and what the family is like.

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Family as an Art

            There are many different definitions and ideas about what makes a family, and also many opinions about what doesn’t make a family. The definition about family is a concept that can have various meanings. The definition of family to some may be described as being in love, providing security, nourishment or socialization and to others family may mean something completely different.   With these being only examples of what some may consider being family, come many more ideas of what family may really mean.  Family is an important topic in the lives of many.  In the painting titled Domestic Happiness, by Lilly Martin Spencer, she brings out a very warm, heart-felt sensation of what it means to be a family and what the family is like.

           The painting Domestic Happiness is of a mother and a father watching their two children sleep. We can tell how happy the couple is by the delicate smiles on their faces. They also have a very intense look of care in their eyes as they look at nothing else but their children. You can see that they are a very happy family. The mother and father are intimately close to one another as you can see in the painting as they stand so near to one another. This is a feminine scene where the man and woman share the same feelings, which is a very progressive idea considering the artistic view at the time of the nineteenth century in which men were rarely portrayed in their paternal aspect and in such an intimate manner. 

We also notice that the background colors are the darkest around the father. This makes us think that maybe the father is not always bringing happiness into the family contradicting the initial appearance of such a happy family. The very colorful and very busy pattern on the father’s clothing suggests that he has many different roles to play in his life. He is not just one simple man. He has many different jobs and perhaps his life is so busy that he does not always get this special time alone with his family. This could be the reason that brings darkness around him because he is hardly around for the family as a father but rather he is out working to support and provide for the family. Perhaps the fact that the clothing the children are wearing is only on the left appendages of the children it is suggesting that the left side is the main system for support. If we take a look at the painting and consider the suggestion that the left side is the form of support and look at what is on the left side of the painting, we see the father.  Perhaps this further supports the theory that the father is always out working to provide for his family. Perchance, this painting is telling us the primary means of support for the family, as suggested by the pattern on his clothing as well, is the father. Even though he may hardly be around and is always busy, perhaps it is because he is simply trying to make the best for his family by working so hard to support and provide for them so that they can live a happy life as the painting portrays. The mother, as we can see in the painting, is as if she is holding the father back from perhaps wanting to hold or touch the children or even speak to them.

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As a viewer looks at a painting, they focus on what it brought out by the brightest colors or what is stands out the most. You can see that throughout the painting the focus is on the children that are lying down.  This focus on the children can be seen because the background is very dark, whereas the bright colors are located around and on the children. The whites and pale skin tones draw in our eyes to focus on the two infants. Another way we can tell that the focus is on the two infants is because the parents’ ...

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