the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
we are warmer before & after my hair thick with worry a sidelong waterview shush gestures exist shift I'm making so much noise you can't look me in the eye behavior is communication it gets in everything two people seated two people cooking two people reading two people interior two people sound with no object see listen see also Jan Steen's Mother & Child in which the distinction between hausfrau & virgin disappears virgin & baby-led weaning that apple looks like it's had a fall from a table a bruise a dent open wide when someone offers you pap or else later you will receive nothing netherlandish virgin with spoon there are many variations extant intended for private devotion with milk soup
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20
the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
the nursing child is a passive rückenfigur by contrast & view into another room or windowscape in which her gesture is unintelligible in which sometimes a pacifier is just a pacifier figures take up or define space sometimes a dog our lady of the mush virgin & child with rosary as chewelry & wooden spoon & wooden spoon & cherry branch (he is about to eat a leaf holy face cut from a book long ago) book open domestic hours he married a miniaturist his wife was a miniaturist rest on the flight into egret [sic] [stet] rest rest a market-tested secular representation indeed a bestseller connect-the-dots & there was never an original
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20
the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
while I was distracted his shift slipped off & nothing else changed & no one noticed without the use of X-radiograph his shift dress disappears & we can reasonably assume this was not the first in an intended series milk soup thick with worry I add too much milk goodnight mush I like how her hands never change some things women do with them his legs kick squirm the same way a pattern followed hold this spoon while I put this other spoon in your mouth distract you with spoons with a branch of cherries with singing the lonely goatherd subsequent copies with fewer flowers & a basket holding correspondence before & after genres exist shift a book tells me cherries bread & knife are domestic symbols of the good life (none where none) two interior people choose a moment & mark it
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20