Monday, November 24, 2008

Hemingway As Kid Balzac



This satirical painting of Hemingway was done by his good friend and fishing companion, Waldo Peirce.
A critic had remarked that Hemingway looked like 19th century French writer Honore de Balzac.
In Peirce's painting, Hemingway appeared to be a slimmed-down version of Balzac (at least facially).
Hemingway was always comparing himself to famous writers and he probably enjoyed this - even though it was done in jest.
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15 comments:

cafe selavy said...

The painting may have been done in jest, but Hemingway had a hair fetish. Living in Cuba, while working on what was published posthumously as "The Garden of Eden," Hemingway bleached his hair and wore it. . . well, sort of androgynously, sort of in the fashion his mother cut his hair when she was dressing him to look like his sister.

But that was all normal then.

Nikon said...

I know that adrogyny was a force under the surface throughout his life. Another of the contradictions of the macho man image.
His choice of wives with short, boyish hair is the most often cited example.

Lo Kelween said...

ehm..they are right. except that he's the thinner version of Honore de Balzac. they did looked alike :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul!
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Have a wonderful week:)

Kay

Nikon said...

Thanks for the visit Elwin and KayEllen!

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

Ernest's face is so much less chubbier but yeah there is some kinda likeness......

thank you for the wishes.....you have a very happy Thanksgiving too, Paul :)

Anonymous said...

Hmm I don't know..I think the boyish hair-do's were totaly in at that time, so probably every woman wore her hair like that.
Androgyn means genderless, so that is not the same as gay..why should you feel attracted to boyish women when you are "genderless" ?

But, again, good post.

Nikon said...

Hi Marc, thanks as always for visiting.
Hemingway was definitely not genderless - my apologies if my writing was confusing on that. But he did like women that were a bit boyish or "tomboyish" looking. (Hadley & Pauline, for instance.)
I think that he wanted a female companion that was as interested in "masculine" pastimes as much as he was and had a boyish look.

GMG said...

Hi Paul! Hope you didn’t grow fat on Thanksgiving ;) and survived all the awful news in the media this week… ;(
It's amazing to see Papa painted as Balzac; always looking for the «La femme de Trente Ans», in the Huiman Commedy... ;)
Meanwhile Blogtrotter is still in Tunisia, waiting your comments at the Blue Village! Hope you enjoy and have a great week!

GMG said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
GMG said...

Human Comedy, sorry!

Kate said...

You're finding some great photos and doing some interesting research to accompany your posts. Thanks!

Shionge said...

I prefered the first picture ;) *tongue in cheek*

Anonymous said...

cool blog

Anonymous said...

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