Emil Bærentzen, Danish
Cover of This Month’s Issue of “Boring Hobbies” Magazine, 1828
Oil on canvas
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MASTERPIECE #3652
/// “Family Portrait,” but with focus changed.
Here, the Bærentzen’s all seem estranged.
No two posed face-to-face,
most stare off into space.
What stands out? How the drapes are arranged.
/// Neither happy nor sad, they’re content
with the way time together is spent.
Bent on solo pursuits
(like a family of mutes),
interaction is a non-event.
/// Their world’s boring, yet ordered and sane,
with no unplanned events causing pain.
Don’t suggest something new,
for they’ve all thought it through
and decided a Dane wouldn’t deign.
/// An exception, perhaps, is the child
in his white paper hat who half-smiled
as he looked up and saw
the blank face of his Ma.
Can she be, by her baby beguiled?