Blue Monday With Madame X 

Dan Graziano painted 'Blue Monday With Madame X' to explore ideas about performance, class, and representation. The painting evokes several cultural references. The title, 'Blue Monday,' suggests a melancholic atmosphere, common in blues music, born from the African-American experience and expressive of economic hardship and social inequality. Juxtaposed with this is "Madame X," reminiscent of John Singer Sargent's portrait of a Parisian socialite, which oozes wealth and privilege. Graziano paints "Madame X" in the background while a jazz band performs in the foreground, asking us to consider the complex and shifting interactions between high culture and popular culture in the United States. To understand this painting more fully, we might research the history of jazz music and its relationship to ideas of race, class, and cultural appropriation. We might also consider the traditional role of portraiture in Western art, particularly its association with wealth, power, and status.