Tina Crnjak of Slovenia and Mary Cassatt

Me in the New Millennium by Tina Crnjak

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The winning entry from Slovenia in ICAF's Second Arts Olympiad, was a very striking black and white drawing by 11 year-old Tina Crnjak, entitled, "Me in the New Millennium." In her drawing, Tina shows her mother and herself lying beneath a blanket. Her mother is holding a new baby. Tina has used very bold lines, repeated shapes, and contrasting patterns in her work. Thin, flowing lines show the mother's long hair spread out on the bed. Her hair leads our eyes in a direction toward the baby and Tina. Other curving lines, seen in the arms and fingers, also lead our eyes upward toward the new baby. Tina's mother has on clothes with large, white dots on a black background. The dots are also repeated in Tina's clothes, only this time they are in black and enclosed in a checkerboard pattern. Even the fingernails on the hands seem to echo the dotted patterns on the clothes. The baby's face looks upward and Tina's face looks outward at the audience, while their mother looks down toward the baby. The embracing arms and Tina's face tell us a warm story of love, security, tenderness, and happiness.

The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt

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A favorite subject of a famous woman artist named Mary Cassatt, was also mothers and their children, shown in both paintings and drawings. In fact, about one-third of all of her artwork was devoted to that subject. Cassatt (correctly pronounced Ca-sat) was born in Pennsylvania, in the United States, on May 22, 1844. She was the fifth child in her family and grew up in Philadelphia. However, during the 1850s she lived with her family in Europe for several years. In her early days as an adult artist, Cassatt became accepted as an Impressionist painter. The Child's Bath, a painting done in 1893, shows a mother sitting on the floor, holding her child in her lap, gently bathing the child's feet. The mother's striped dress creates a pattern that acts as a background for the child's figure, much like Tina's mother's hair, which provides a background for the figure of the new baby. In Cassatt's painting other patterns may be seen in the rug as well as in the wallpaper and dresser in the background. In Tina's drawing, there are patterns created by the dots and checkerboard fabric. An important thing to notice in Cassatt's painting is the repeated shapes of the hands and the child's feet. The mother's hand curves around her child much like Tina's and her mother's hands curve around the baby. Even the curving shape of the wash bowl, seen in Cassatt's painting, seems to be echoed in Tina's drawing by the curving line of her mother's arm and the round shapes of the baby's and Tina's faces. The warm feelings we get from Cassatt's painting are the same as in Tina's: love, security, tenderness, and happiness.

If you like this painting by Cassatt, another one you might like, which shows a mother, daughter, and new baby is The Family, at the Chrysler Museum of Art (www.chrysler.org/american01.asp)in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.

COPYRIGHT 2005 International Child Art Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group