Washington Square

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on January 18, 2017 at 6:49pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

These works keep getting better with longer viewing.  Washington Square in particular offers a complex narrative, combing elements of fantasy with classical figural representation.  Again, I admire the meticulous rendering of the forms; the tempera medium is flawlessly opaque throughout the varied surfaces of cloth, feathers and skin. The female on the far right with the open hat collecting tips appears to be depicted with a slightly higher contrast and saturation of hues, allowing her accompanying troupe to ever so gently recede.  The light colored pigeons inject movement into the otherwise stoic piece, and underscore the locale of a street scene.  I find the small figure in the center of the composition curious in that it first presents as a ventriloquist dummy but seems as animated, if not more so, than his puppeteer. The dummy also seems to be the only character aware of the viewer in the pictorial space. I admire this understated question of self-awareness within a dreamy and romantic picture.