Born in Philadelphia, Cecilia Beaux studied art in Paris and became the first woman teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In the summer of 1888, she traveled to the picturesque seaside village of Concarneau in Brittany. For Beaux, painting in the open air held the promise of a new artistic era. Twilight Confidences reflects her fascination with the crisp white collars and wing-like caps that the women there wore. Its subject also suggests her ambition. Years earlier, while an art student in Philadelphia, she had seen a copy of Jean-Francois Millet’s painting Angelus, which also shows French peasants. As Beaux recalled, the “romantic dignity” of Millet’s picture “made the paintings near it look common.”
出生于費城的塞西莉亞-博克斯（Cecilia Beaux）曾在巴黎學習藝術，并成為賓夕法尼亞美術學院的第一位女教師。1888年夏天，她來到了布列塔尼風景如畫的海邊村莊孔卡爾諾。對于博克斯來說，戶外繪畫預示著一個新的藝術時代的到來。《黃昏的秘密》（Twilight Confidences）反映了她對當地女性穿著的白色硬領和翼狀帽子的喜愛。畫的主題也暗示了她的雄心。幾年前當她還是費城的一名藝術系學生時，她曾看過讓-弗朗索瓦·米勒（Jean-Francois Millet）的畫作《晚禱》（Angelus）的復制品，那幅畫也描繪了法國的農民。正如博克斯回憶，米勒畫作里的“浪漫的莊重” “使近似它的畫看起來平庸”。
During Beaux’s studies at twilight, she sought to capture colors as they glanced across her models’ faces and clothing. Her lessons that summer with American painters Charles Lasar and Alexander Harrison nurtured this interest in the shifting light and brilliant colors of French Impressionism. Canvases like this one, which were the result of her diligent study, led Harrison to declare that Beaux had “the stuff that digs and thinks and will not be satisfied and is never weary of the effort of painting nor counts the cost.”
在博克斯對黃昏的研究中，她試圖捕捉掃過模特臉部和衣服的顏色。那年夏天她與美國畫家查爾斯·拉薩爾（Charles Lasar）和亞歷山大·哈里森（Alexander Harrison）一起上課，培養了她對法國印象派變幻莫測的光線和絢麗色彩的興趣。這幅油畫便是她勤奮研習的成果，這使哈里森稱博克斯“有深入思考的能力，從不滿足現狀，且永遠不會厭倦繪畫工作也不計代價。”
We present today's painting thanks to the Georgia Museum of Art.? : )
感謝喬治亞藝術博物館和我們分享今天這幅畫作。: ))
hold the promise of 有望成為
