Marie Antoinette

Karen Kilimnik (American, born 1955). Marie Antoinette out for a walk At Her Petite Hermitage, France, 1750, 2005. Oil on canvas, 20 x 15 in. (50.8 x 38.1 cm). Often, it is difficult to tell exactly what is going on in Karen Kilimnik’s paintings. Being that the title of her paintings never really match the face in the painting, she kind of play around with it. In this painting “Marie Antoinette out for a Walk at her Petite Hermitage, France, 1750, was painted in 2005 is a portrait of Paris Hilton. She is been portrait as Marie Antoinette, which some people might find distasteful because of Paris Hilton’s reputation. She looked out of place and doesn’t go well with the background. Don’t get me wrong, she is beautifully painted, with her pinkish skin, brightly demanding acknowledgment from the viewer. She is the brightest object in the painting. With her long flowing blond hair, from the top of her head, tucked behind her right ear exposing the right side of her face more so than the left side, being held back by some type of a purple bowtie shape pin, with a couple strings of hair on her right shoulder, passing by her long eccentric neck, to her bare shoulders leading your eyes down to her arm anticipating what the rest of her unfinished body parts might look like. She has deep piercing blue eyes, not quite looking at you but as thought looking through you. Not in a way like she’s trying to intimidate or feeling superiorly, but in a warm way, charming the viewer, forcing you to accept her in the role of being Marie Antoinette, flirting you into liking her or just enjoying the scenery of viewing you while you are viewing her. She has piercing red lip stick showing the fullness of her lips, which have a flirtatious smirk to it which goes with her eyes drawing the viewer in. She has a white and purple dress on with flower designs that match with the purple ribbon in her hair. She is in the foreground and mid-ground of the painting, dead center, right in your face