First Communion of Anaemic Young Girls in the Snow — Fine Art

The title points to a group of pale girls standing in snow for a church rite. Alphonse Allais took a solemn scene and turned it into a dry joke, setting up the kind of irreverent humour he kept through his drawings and broadsheets. The image stays far away from the prayer it names.

The fine art print sits on a matte sheet, so the white snow and the weak colours do not glare under a lamp. A light frame on a dark wall lets the pale ground sit forward, and a dark frame on a pale wall lets the edges step back.

In a narrow hallway at the top of the stairs you see the empty ground first, then the small group of figures. The room stays dim and the picture does not fight the shadow along the skirting board.