Wishing on the Moon was another painting of one of the locals in Fayence, Chantal Robert. Christine initially started this one while painting another portrait of Chantal, “Happily Ever After“; see the diary entries for details, below. The painting was also sometimes called “The Wish II” or “Le Voeux II”, but for clarity I will continue to refer to it as the “Wishing on the Moon”, as referenced in Christine’s diary.

A further reading of the diary entries explains both the birth of the idea for this painting, and why it has the same model and identical pose of the earlier one. Initially, just going by the photographs, this had me baffled as “Wishing on the Moon” appeared to be a complete rework of that earlier painting. Instead, we read that shortly after starting the painting “Happily Ever After” with Chantal, she had the idea for a more powerful way of expressing the idea of wishing for a happy married future. Using a second canvas, Christine reuses the same initial sketches to transfer the identical pose, but this time with a much different background in mind. We can see it takes over three months before she is able to persuade Chantal to sit again and continue working on this new painting. The initial painting now becomes a gift or payment to Chantal for sitting for the second, more complex work.

Conceptually, this painting leaves little to the imagination by following the two clichés, “being on top of the world” and “asking for the moon” for one’s future, and then presenting both with strong visuals.

Diary Entries