The six centuries-old art history rules hidden in their engagement photo

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5. Ceremony

Lawrence Alma Tadema, A Foregone Conclusion, 1885

The sense of suspenseful ceremony is skilfully acknowledged and manipulated in London-based Dutch artist Lawrence Alma Tadema’s charming enactment of the moments immediately preceding a proposal. Though the outcome of the ensuing encounter may be “a foregone conclusion”, as the painting’s title assures, the work cleverly captures both the anxious mindset of the young man, who ascends a staircase towards us, nervously staring at the ring he carries, and the eager anticipation of the young woman, whom we see spying on him from beneath an oversized urn. Though many may have seen the Swift/Kelce moment coming and thought its outcome a foregone conclusion, there is pleasure in seeing the ceremony play out in real time.

Metropolitan Museum

6. Composure

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Proposal, 1879

Though there is unmistakable passion in the proposal photo, it’s a passion shone through a prism of quiet composure, recalling the stage set by the 19th-Century French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau in his 1879 work The Proposal. Here, Bouguereau depicts an earnest suitor leaning through a window toward a young woman at her spinning wheel. Though their costumes were thought to recall the story of Goethe’s Faust, and therefore spun with ruin, the drama is imperturbably calm. The emotions are balanced. There is impressive poise no matter the tumult.

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