La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Love is a Mix Tape, or EP, selections will be continued soon:) ....

My birthday is in about a week and a half. I've never been the type to want to make a big deal out of my birthday. In fact, I think it's more amusing to participate in festivities when others make big deals out of their birthdays.

I also think that I am one of those people who revels in seeing who actually remembers my birthday. I like to say nothing, mention nothing to anybody, and then see what happens.

John always struggles with what to get me for a gift. He generally waits until the last possible moment, in which he has to use the mall as means for the gift...no online shopping for procrastinators.

Last year, he got me this Vera Bradley purse--- green with large, bold flowers. It was exactly the one I wanted. I ended up returning it though...just never used it.

A few years ago, knowing that I love the color green, he got me a LARGE jade pendant. I returned it for something a little more modest.

This year, I told him I wanted a nice framed print for the bedroom. I gave him a website and wrote down 4 artists' names: Mucha, Waterhouse, Wyeth, and Klimt. I told John to search through the artists and pick a painting that would be good for the bedroom that both of us would like. Not an easy task, I realize. Kind of like a birthday gift/scavenger hunt.

He showed me three paintings that made the "final cut": Klimt's Hygieia, Klimt's Apple Tree 1912, and Waterhouse's La Belle Dame Sans Merci. For each painting, he told me an apt reason for wanting it for us. Hygieia somehow represents male and female, Apple Tree connects to us because apple picking is truly one of the things we look forward to each autumn, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci relates to a phrase he has heard for years---additionally, the painting is of a woman and a knight.

We're going with La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Based on a Keats poem, it actually isn't the most "romantic" of paintings, despite the imagery's conveyance. It's mysterious.

I almost feel like we don't even have to buy the print now---just knowing that he picked that one out is a good gift... we're still buying the framed print:)