I realized that I do not have a recent photograph of Jane, so I chose this idealized painting that we saw in Montreal. Jane has long since grown from the young girl that she was when I first met her, but her sweetness of then has not dimmed with time. She is still the favorite. With the advent of children and grandchildren, she has now grown into her new role as the cool aunt. Piled atop that mantle is her work as caregiver for Harry. The diaspora that is our scattered family, look to her as gatekeeper, when the convening of the clan occurs during cabin season. For all these works that you perform and more, we thank you Jane and wish you, a happy birthday.

Here is the synopsis for this painting:

“Paint as you see, and be accurate in your drawing,” was the advice of William Bouguereau, an academic painter with a “photo-idealist” style. Indeed, the studio models in this painting—two children in country clothing—are depicted with virtuoso minuteness. But the realism stops there. Although the life-size scale of the girls is a concession to the realism of the period, this image is neither a pitiful plea for the peasantry nor a glorification of country life. For sheer love of the beautiful, Bouguereau idealizes his subjects. These sweet little bucolic faces are imbued with a contemporary nostalgia for the happiness of the countryside and a stock-in-trade picturesqueness that wealthy American buyers appreciated in the paintings of this “pompier” artist [An artist regarded as painting in an academic, imitative, and vulgarly neoclassical style.], honored during his lifetime, forgotten and then discovered once again.