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Reflections on invention in domestic-history painting

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‘The artist begs the public to be indulgent, because [s]he has neither imitated other works nor even used studies from nature. The imitation of nature is as difficult as it is admirable, if it is really perfect. But an artists may also, surely remove [herself] entirely from nature and depict forms of movements which to this day have only existed in the imagination…Painting, like poetry, selects from the universe whatever it considers most suitable for its purpose. ….Thanks to this creative combination the artist ceases to be a mere copyist and acquires the title of an inventor’  Francisco Goya (preface for Los Caprichos) -with gender change Goya’s words perfectly sums up the way in which it is possible for artist’s to capture something of everyday realities without sitting down to draw them mimetically. We all know how people look, how they move, what motivates them and the things they do every day. Domestic, caring and everyday acts make unusual ‘grand narratives’. Indeed housework an