ManicDDaily

Courbet "Baigneuses" (detail - only one baigneuse)

The combination of  day job, blog, and endless post-season baseball games, have made it difficult to do decent yoga and/or get to the gym of late.  (Hard to blog in downward dog.)   This, plus some brownies that I made for a visiting nephew, have left me feeling very chubby this Friday morning.   To compensate for those feelings, I’m posting “Courbet”, an homage to the wonderful sensitivity of  Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) to the womanly  physique.

Courbet

All I can say is that
it’s a good thing we have
museums hanging Courbets,
Rubens,
Rembrandts,
the occasional Italian,
with their depictions of swelling bellies,
dimples gathered around spines, flesh rippling
like Aphrodite’s birth foam,
the creep of pubic hair juxtaposed by coy hands
whose curved digits
pudge, slightly sunken cheeks (above, below),
spidery blood vessels
rooting beneath the patina.
All I can say, as
I catch my face in the
glass, glance down at
my folio of torso,
is that it’s a good thing.

All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson.