American Beauty
This painting is inspired from the film American Beauty. She makes the link from the film to the ancient Roman myth of The Birth of Venus and the Greek myth of Aphrodite.
Fragile, illusory, yet utterly captivating, beauty holds the promise of happiness in a brush
stroke. It’s the American Dream, to hold still the moment in time when the flowers have just unfurled, their velvet promises inviting, youth at its most vibrant. The roses are not the traditional lust-born crimson, but virginal and virtuously white.
A romantic pink light washes over the tableau. Her body is painted as alabaster,
her hair flowing goddesslike, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Aphrodite in a modern canvas. As in the 1999 movie of the same name, she embodies the unattainable. She is the idealization of desire, a search for perfection. Barbie.
Once innocently all young, we were burdened by our potential, yet untainted by life’s blows. The young woman in American Beauty surrenders in repose. She will never be this powerful again and yet she does not know that. She has as yet no idea the superficiality of the world, nor the cruelty of time.
by author Tracey Norre Thomsen
Fragile, illusory, yet utterly captivating, beauty holds the promise of happiness in a brush
stroke. It’s the American Dream, to hold still the moment in time when the flowers have just unfurled, their velvet promises inviting, youth at its most vibrant. The roses are not the traditional lust-born crimson, but virginal and virtuously white.
A romantic pink light washes over the tableau. Her body is painted as alabaster,
her hair flowing goddesslike, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Aphrodite in a modern canvas. As in the 1999 movie of the same name, she embodies the unattainable. She is the idealization of desire, a search for perfection. Barbie.
Once innocently all young, we were burdened by our potential, yet untainted by life’s blows. The young woman in American Beauty surrenders in repose. She will never be this powerful again and yet she does not know that. She has as yet no idea the superficiality of the world, nor the cruelty of time.
by author Tracey Norre Thomsen