High Class Scuire In The Squire's Door

This exhibition features painting of strugglers of poverty are begging the rich for anything to spare, so that they will be able to survive another day. Each of these paintings is telling a story of the hardships people are facing in the world.

In George Mortland’s The Squire’s Door, in the middle of the painting there is a high class squire dressed in a costly red outfit with a young girl. The girl is wearing raggedy, ripped clothes. The young girl seems to be latching onto the squire’s hand in front of the squire’s home. If you don’t know, a squire is someone of high class like a landowner. This work of art goes with the theme of the exhibition because it shows the great disparities between the rich and poor during this time period. It is very evident that the girl is begging the squire for something to spare. This piece brings up many questions. Is the girl a servant to the woman? What exactly is the girl begging for?

An interesting portrait by Sir William Beechey called Portrait of Sir Francis Ford’s Children Giving a Coin to a Beggar Boy, at first glance seems to be a small act of kindness by two young children. In the painting you see two higher class children

giving a coin to a young boy begging for change. The children giving the change are the children of Sir Francis Ford and are dressed in the highest of style. The beggar boy that they are giving the change to is very dirty and wearing torn rags. Why does the artist use this painting to make the children seem to be kind-hearted? Is it because there father was pro-slavery, but wanted to give his family a certain look? A fun fact about Sir Francis Ford is that he actually is pro-slavery. Was this painting made to make people think better of him and his family?

Hendrick ter Brugghen’s painting The Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus gives a visual of a religious story in the book of Luke in the Bible.

The story is about a rich man who is served by a very poor man named Lazarus that dreams of getting food from the rich man’s feast. When the rich man died he was sent to Hades and when the poor man died he was given a better life. When the rich man went to hell, he still tried to have Lazarus serve him water. In the painting of a room of men feasting, attention immediately goes to the right of the painting where the two main are lighter than the rest of the portrait. You can see that the rich man is now the one covered in rags and begging in Hades. You can see that Hades is a place of suffering for the rich man. Why do you think the artist portrays in this

way?