Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli 1865

Curator: Look at this striking canvas! Edgar Degas painted this genre scene back in 1865, and it's currently held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The work is entitled "Edmond and Thérèse Morbilli," and is an oil-on-canvas portrait, painted in the impressionistic style. Editor: Wow, this is heavy. There’s something really somber and distant about this piece, isn’t there? They’re close physically, but worlds apart in expression. Almost suffocating. Curator: I find that the couple is fraught with social and psychological weight, an exploration of marriage itself as a visual study of symbology. It challenges the classic portrait, in effect, disrupting a symbol of unity, love, or allegiance. Instead, the work suggests internal division and unacknowledged tensions, despite what marriage itself purports to communicate. Editor: I see that, and that’s the brilliant bit. He's dominating the scene and she’s so… contained. There's such a contrast between the assertive angle of his body, like he’s staking a claim, and her withdrawn, almost resigned pose. It’s more a statement about power dynamics than love, wouldn’t you say? Curator: Precisely. Note how Degas employed symbolic visual clues, or signifiers of status, class, and tradition. In this instance, the power and solemnity of tradition, like the couple themselves, is in a state of decay or collapse, at least inwardly, if not outwardly. Her downward gaze seems to tell all. Her inner state is reflected through the semiotics of her body language. Editor: And it’s all in those beautiful, smudgy brushstrokes. It's all loose and undefined. Maybe this marriage, at that point in time, was still not entirely defined, and subject to changing expectations. In other words, nothing is concrete; love is always, always impressionistic! Curator: Love the play on words there! Ultimately, it leaves us with a work of subtle, yet poignant insight into the complexities of human relationships, I believe. Editor: I agree, though I still get this claustrophobic vibe from it. Still, a testament to the weight of those societal expectations and the internal struggles. Gives you something to think about, doesn't it?