QUOTE (unknownwake @ Aug 13 2008, 05:49 PM)
Okay, I don't know if this really belongs here, but since it's a thread loaded with trivia hounds, I figure I'll get an answer faster here than by making a new thread.
I was watching a rerun of Mr. Monk and Little Monk the other day, and I saw Adrian explaining the painting of the woman chopping mushrooms for her husband in the museum, and he says she's going to kill her husband, as evidenced by the fact that the mushrooms were poisonous, and the bruises up the woman's arms. I was hoping to find out the name of the painting... I've been all over google looking for it.
So, anyone know what the painting of the woman chopping poisonous mushrooms for her abusive husband's dinner is called?
The best that anyone can come up with is that it is a painting that was done specifically for the show because no one seems to recognize it. I have done searches for it, too, and turned up nothing. I imagine that they figured if it was a well known painting, the idea behind it, the woman's motivations and actions would be very well known and Monk's reveal about what is going on wouldn't have the shock or the same kind of impact if that was the case. Besides, it would be difficult to find a painting that already existed to serve the purpose so perfectly. Monk doesn't strike me as the type to read the symbolism that most artists are fond of using, prefering to witness a scene and interpret it strictly for what is there and stated directly, as with the easily identified poisoned mushrooms and the bruises on the woman's arms. Most artists would include small little symbols such as a spider's web to hint at her intent, since female spiders commonly kill and eat their mates. A painting like Fragonard's 'The Swing' is pretty obvious and doesn't convey as much with symbolism as with just showing the viewer what is going on. which Monk would get immediately, but then so would many people and the context of the painting is wrong for the purposes of the episode. Something like Degas's 'Interior The Rape' isn't quite the right context, either, but it suggests the idea much more through symbolism than by blatant imagery, and it is similar to this painting in that if you didn't know the tital and were viewing it for the first time and didn't graps the symbolism of the box with the open lid and pink lining, you probably wouldn't think of it as anything remotely disturbing. But it doesn't work for the purposes of this episode and I doubt Monk would see this painting and think of what it's called. But anyway, the point is that there is very little chance that a paintin was already in existance that would have fit so neatly into that episode and served the purpose this well, so that painting was most likely commisioned, as was the one in the VP's office in The Candidate.
I will miss my daily dose of trivia, but I will play catch-up frequently. I will still be around but not as much as I would like to be.
DePere is pretty close to Green Bay and Appleton is at the tip of Lake Winnebago, just south of Green Bay. The best way to explain it is to say, when the trees start to turn color in the fall in Madison, they are already in full autumn color in Green Bay and falling off the trees in the northern most part of our state.
I loved this dose of trivia and can't wait for the next installment. 
