The Broken Pitcher

Words: 1270
Pages: 6

In the late 19th century many French artists continued to paint in a style that was traditionally taught and exhibited in French art academies. A Realist painter, William Adolphe Bouguereau, who painted this wide-eyed peasant girl in 1891, titled The Broken Pitcher, was one of the most renowned. This sentimental oil on canvas painting, which is 53 x 33 (134.6 x 83.8 cm) in dimension, is currently situated in California Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum. The girl’s figure is carefully delineated with clear contours and smooth modeling—this makes the figure to appear idealized rather than drawn from life. The other elements in the painting—the stone-well casing, the pump, and the pitcher—are artfully balanced to frame the girl. The painting purposefully evokes a sentimental response, with its focus of …show more content…
The erect vertical stone well on the left hand side and the horizontal part of the well where she sits on, anchors our view, our focus straight to the subject matter. Moreover, if we carefully look at the lines in the painting, we can see a very erect, vertical phallic stone well on the left side, tracing this line with the underlying triangle, will direct us directly to the broken pitcher below her feet. Thus, why are this setting is significantly important to the painting? The phallic, vertical stone well draws our attention to the subject matter and the broken pitcher—this, in fact, symbolizes her lost virginity, or by implication, her lost hope and future that she can no longer