EDGAR DEGAS, 1882, Getty Museum.
Strange clouds in an indoor landscape.
Amorphous, organic forms of aubergine and brown, without detail.
A diagonal surface in thin layers of peachy-umber.
The face of a woman, trapped between those blank, cloudy shapes.
She’s positioned on the third of the composition; she stares into the void of a purple form, aloof and despondent.
Her face has the most detail of anything in the composition.
The other figure is at work and seems content. But this is not about her.
This is about the sad woman, the one who cannot bear her lot in life.
She fingers a swath of fabric that glows a delicate rose-pink, and despite her suffering, her touch is tender.
More pieces of fabric in brighter colors are strewn around her.
The colors of these fabrics are alchemical and ancient: gold, cinnabar, malachite.
They shimmer in a sea of muted purple-browns.
The bright fabrics break free of the prison of shapes and lines around the sad milliner, but she looks away from them—the hope they represent is not something she can consider.
She cannot transform her circumstance. She will remain in a life of lead, never to witness something that turns to gold.
This is a painting for those who feel trapped by life, who suffer in silence and look away, even as hope sparkles just outside their reach.
This is a painting for those who have forsaken themselves.❧
Comments