This little girl ("Kleines Mädchen") is from the nineteenth century. She lives in this painting by Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907). Such a sweet little face, with that open-to-the-world look that children do so often have, so ready to believe. I love how Nicolae has haloed her head with this red cloth cloud. She seems to be not so much wearing the kerchief as looking out from inside it.
Nicolae Grigorescu is said to be one of the founders of modern Romanian painting. Romania! Truly, I can never see the word Romania in print without immediately thinking of all things romantic. I know that I am always making leaps like this, but I do like how my mind seems to constantly draw me into anything romantic, poetic, lyrical. Somehow, it never seems like the wrong place to be!
The little girl in the red kerchief interests me for two reasons. The first is because the way in which her kerchief billows out around her head is somewhat like the way in which my folded fabric kerchiefs also stand out. My kerchiefs, however, have the advantage of crisscrossing the "face" so that I have no need to worry about creating a face at all.
But I do love the look of that little girl's kerchief.
So I made a tracing of it.
And then I cut it out of fabric. Such a tiny little piece of cut-cloth! And isn't it amazing how the mind adds so many details all on its own? Especially if you have already seen the painting above, then you can see that, yes, this is a little kerchief all wrapped around a little girl's head.
But to try to get closer to the effect of Nicolae's painting, I cut an oval out of black art paper.
On the left, I placed my little red piece of cloth upon the black oval as if it were a Victorian miniature. On the right is "Kleines Mädchen" again, for comparison, and I do think I have echoed this lovely painting in some very tiny way.
The second reason this painting interests me so much is that I wrote a children's picture book story about a little girl who goes on a train to the far north. Her mother ties a new red kerchief around her little daughter's face, something bright and fancy to wear as she sets off upon her journey. My story is titled "The Wolf in the Memory Box" and, yes, there is a wolf in it! Alas, this little story keeps coming back to me, no matter where I send it as I try to find a home for it in the great and vast publishing world. I've been sending it off for about ten years now, I guess.
But, in the back of my mind, I also keep thinking about illustrating it myself. I can just see my little girl, a black silhouette of a girl in a red kerchief, flying through the northern woods in pursuit of a wolf!
This nineteenth century painting, this little piece of cut-cloth, this splash of red against black, might be all I need to get me going on this!!
