"Orpheus Leading Eurydice From The Underworld, painted by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
This is the painting I love the most, and yet I have not seen it. I have only saw it on a postcard, one that my cousin showed me on the car drive home from the Houston Art mueseum.
Here, Orpheus so starkly contrasts his passed wife. While he bears all the hallmarks of youth and of the living-- confident stride, determination, tanned skin, forward gaze--, Eurydice is his antithesis in everything. She is pale, and she looks down at the ground in solemnity. Even the way their garments blow in the wind are different. Eurydice's hang down, as if they are anchoring her to the underworld. And if we examine her face more clearly, her expression immediately betrays her knowledge that she will never touch the earth again. This gotta be the most tragic painting in the world.