"They Were Just Roommates" #history #art #painting

"L’Indiscret," painted in 1795 by Louis-Léopold Boilly

My thoughts on this interesting painting????

First of all, do y'all think they were just roommates? haha!

Anyways , this painting caught my eye because initially I saw the man barging his way into the woman's room, and she is clearly not decent. However, when I initially saw the third person I didn't look too closely and thought this was a scene about infidelity and the husband walked in on his wife with another man. But upon closer inspection I saw something a little surprising to me! I didn't know this kind of thing was considered okay for a painter to do in the more modest times, but the artist clearly didn't care for modesty. In fact I checked out a lot of his other paintings and this is a very common and recurring theme, which I find fascinating. Why did he keep painting two women together? Was it a fascination the painter had, or was it a personal reality? Maybe he knew two women that had a relationship that might've been outside the norms of the time? Regardless, of why he did it, it has been done and we can now talk about it in our modern times. What do you think is happening in this painting? Who is the man in the painting relative to the women? Why does the man barging into the room look like the painter himself? There is a lot to unpack here!

Thanks for learning about this interesting and slightly steamy painting with me! ❤️