Exploring the Text

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  1. What does this portrayal of a mother and her child tell you about early New England attitudes toward children and child raising? Use evidence from the painting to support your interpretation.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What does this portrayal of a mother and her child tell you about early New England attitudes toward children and child raising? Use evidence from the painting to support your interpretation.
  2. Strict Puritan New Englanders followed sumptuary laws that forbade them to wear bright colors and ornate materials. How do you explain the outfits of the mother and daughter portrayed here? Hint: consider the social and economic status of the subjects.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Strict Puritan New Englanders followed sumptuary laws that forbade them to wear bright colors and ornate materials. How do you explain the outfits of the mother and daughter portrayed here? Hint: consider the social and economic status of the subjects.
  3. Art historian Milton Brown has described this painting as having “a surprisingly authentic psychological mood.” Explain what that mood is and cite details in the portrait that contribute to it.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Art historian Milton Brown has described this painting as having “a surprisingly authentic psychological mood.” Explain what that mood is and cite details in the portrait that contribute to it.
  4. Art historians have alternately identified the painter as an untrained artist, a Dutch itinerant from New York, and even an artist working in the French style. What elements in the painting can you identify that suggest formal artistic training? What examples suggest that the painter was most likely self-taught?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Art historians have alternately identified the painter as an untrained artist, a Dutch itinerant from New York, and even an artist working in the French style. What elements in the painting can you identify that suggest formal artistic training? What examples suggest that the painter was most likely self-taught?
  5. Look at the portrait below of a mother and child painted more than a hundred years before the Freake portrait by the Italian painter Agnolo Bronzino. What are the differences between the two portraits? Do you see any similarities? How might you explain the different skill level demonstrated by the Italian painter?
    image
    Agnolo Bronzino, Eleonora of Toledo with Her Son Giovanni, c. 1545, oil on wood, 45¼” × 377/8”, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
    De Agostini Picture Library/A. Dagli Orti/The Bridgeman Art Library

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Look at the portrait below of a mother and child painted more than a hundred years before the Freake portrait by the Italian painter Agnolo Bronzino. What are the differences between the two portraits? Do you see any similarities? How might you explain the different skill level demonstrated by the Italian painter?