Aisha with Skeleton

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on October 31, 2015 at 9:47am

Curator’s Comments:  

 

Aisha with Skeleton is a wonderful and classic figure study, perhaps rooted in Dutch portraiture that historically included skulls as a vanitas, or momento mori. An ominous mood of mortality can easily be constructed from such a narrative, even if a more academic arrangement was intended. The warm tonalities in the figure and chair, along with the bold graphic print of the woman’s clothing nicely push the figure into the extreme foreground, and allow the cooler and more ambiguous background to recede.  The inclusion of three heads in the painting, between the living model, skull and painted image on the wall create an interesting formal set up and exploration of both the direct and removed nature of artistic reproduction.