What does Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper tell us about beauty?
I think my character Lydia can’t confess, even to herself, that she finds beauty in herself, yet I think she does know she has something beautiful about her–even a “loaf of bread” has a satisfying shape and texture, and it’s nourishing too! Cassatt’s paintings, both of Lydia and of other women, show the beauty of introspection and of emotion. I have always felt that an intelligent face is a beautiful face, and, judging from Cassatt’s images of women, I believe that she thought this as well. The image of Lydia reading the morning paper makes Lydia an immediate presence, but also a transitory one. Why was this painting taken as your title-piece? While the paper she holds places her in a current, familiar world, it’s a long-ago yesterday’s paper. Why do you think Cassatt chose to focus on Lydia concentrating on a text so flimsy and fleeting? How did you select the paintings of Lydia that structure the book? I liked the light and ordinary sound of this phrase; I liked the way it suggested
