La Répétition Générale by Paul Charles Chocarne Moreau

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The prominence of red color in the painting is due to the special clothes called Choir Dress worn by the kids. Children are wearing the choir dresses – the tradition dress when a religious ceremony has been held.

Here, in the painting, the fun-loving kids with such dresses are not all in the mood to rehearse. As their leader is playing the organ, two boys have sneaked behind him and are having their time of fun. The drink is not recognizable but it should be some kind of sweet drink for which kids would fight for, or else the kid won’t take such risk.

Paul Mareau’s paintings most often depict little Parisian children playing on the streets. Or the wealthy children playing in palaces or having some jokes in the royal palaces or such prosperous buildings where religious ceremonies are held. He has a tendency to depict children breaking the regular laws of the society – the laws which could be considered meaningless from children’s perspective. In every painting in which kids are wearing choir dress, they don’t care about their “religious” dress and have a good time in their own way. In short, the false appearance worn by clothes doesn’t affect children’s minds. That innocent, unchanged state of mind is emphasized every time.

The adorable part of his paintings is that he doesn’t deliberately intend to deliver any social message through his works. He just paints them and the message is inherited in them unintentionally. It’s all about the viewer’s perspective how he considers the paintings and what messages he derives out of those numerous brush strokes dragged on the plain canvas.

This western genre painting is a fine presentation of his time. And we cannot help ourselves but smile at the little disobedience is happening behind the back of the leader.