Dawn (French: L'Aurore), also known as The Girl with a Lily is an oil painting by the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau made in 1881.
Dawn is the first in a series of allegorical nude paintings meant to represent the time of day, including Evening Mood (1882), Night (1883) and Day (1884).
It is exhibited at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama.
Not to be confused with the Michelangelo sculpture of the same name that can be found in the Medici Chapels.
Dawn provides examples of:
- Allegorical Character: As the title implies, the woman presented in the image is meant to represent the time of dawn.
- Color Motif: White. She is draped in a white cloth, she is interacting with a white lily and the sky's colors are washed out and muted, associating the color with the early morning.
- Flower Motifs: Lilies; she is seen handling a lone lily, the white cloth she is draped in the same palore of white meant to draw a parallel between the flower and the woman.
- Nude Nature Dance: She is clothed in nothing but a loose sheet as she interacts with the outdoors, the posture indicating that she is frolicking, her body light as a feather in the damp morning.
- One-Word Title: Protagonist Title about the Allegorical Character representing dawn.
- Rule of Symbolism: The lily is a flower most associated with devotion and purity, Ancient Greek culture in particular associating it with rebirth and motherhood. Dawn is the time that represents the start of a new day, implying that the Allegorical Character is the youngest of the four. This can also be connected to the white of the fabric she is dressed in, white representing both purity and youth in women.
- Walk on Water: She is either doing this or floating above the surface of a calm pond, with one toe just touching the water.
