more image inspiration

This week’s optional assignment is to find a painting or photograph or piece of visual art and somehow describe it. But go further: be in it. Become the model or the painter. The more famous the work of art, the better, because then we know just what piece of art.
So this week, if you want, try stepping inside a work of art and writing from that perspective.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother
1871; Oil on canvas, 144.3 x 162.5 cm; Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill (1834-1903). American-born painter and graphic artist, active mainly in England.

"Tis a dismal existence
For me, as here I sit,
Motionless; barely breathing,
While he looks, and looks again.
Then...dab, stroke, rub,
Look again.
Never a word uttered.
Only the sound of our breathing,
the bristles brushing canvas.

These aching bones, so stiff,
Will creak loudly when at
Last I'm allowed to stir.
How did I come to this?
Sitting still as a stone
While supper burns!