alto

alto - noun - the range between soprano and tenor; the second highest instrument in a family of musical instruments (viola in the violin family)

I really enjoy music.

contravene

contravene - v. - to go or act contrary to, violate; to oppose in argument, contradict

What children do to their parents.

risque

risqué – adj - Daringly close to indelicacy or impropriety; off-color.

Good examples might be The Swing and Young Girl Playing With Puppy, paintings by John Honore Fragonard.

Today's Exquisite entry is Portrait of a Young Girl Reading (1776), my personal Fragonard favorite and definitely not risque. The picture resonates with me for many reasons, and not only because I find modest, pretty teenage girls attractive. I'd guess the subject to be about 16, and Fragonard has caught her at a peaceful moment, but her future is rather less attractive. She'll be in her late twenties when the French Revolution begins. Being evidently a member of the upper class, I can only hope she and her husband (surely she married) and her children (surely she had children) read the handwriting on the wall and left France; if not, she would have been in her early thirties when the Commitee of Public Safety kicked off the Reign of Terror. Assuming she and her husband didn't lose their heads, she'd have been in her early forties when the Napoleonic Wars began in earnest. Maybe her husband (and sons?) survived, maybe they didn't. She'd have been around 55 when a certain amount of tranquility was restored. Perhaps she had a happy old age.