People quite often ask me where I find the paintings I put on here. Well, people sometimes send them to me, which I much appreciate, or I spot them on various websites. The one I use the most, and look at every day, is called Old Paint. When I see something I like, I pop it into a file called 'newest reading pics', and then, as long as something even newer hasn't caught my eye, I have a trawl through it and choose one that takes my fancy. This morning I had a hard job choosing because I found several really nice ones, but in the end I went for this.
This is Girl Reading, painted in 1901 by the Danish artist Peter Ilsted (1861-1933). Together with his brother in law Vilhelm Hammershøi and their friend Carl Halsoe, he was a member of what was known as the Copenhagen Interior School. So yes, they painted interiors, but they also painted women and girls, often reading or engaged in other quiet pursuits, but almost invariably seen from behind. There's something extraordinarily appealing, to me at at least, about these back views. I've no idea why, though I'm sure some art historian or psychologist could tell me.
