Figure In A Room
Artist
Frank Weston Benson
(American, 1862 - 1951)
Date1912
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions30 x 25 1/8 in. (37 5/16 x 32 5/16 x 2 5/16 in. framed)
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineA. W. Stanley Fund
Terms
Object number1972.38
DescriptionFigure in a Room is typical of Benson's genre scenes of the teens, in that it reflects the artist's continued preoccupation with the depiction of light, both indoors and out. By 1900 Benson had refined his own version of American Impressionism, a style of painting that blended the academic precepts favored at Parisian art schools with the increasingly popular methods of the French Impressionists. Benson and late-nineteenth-century contemporaries shared an interest in figure painting; in Boston a more specific interest in the work of the Dutch painter Jan Vermeer was stimulated by the 1904 publication of a monograph on the artist by Philip Leslie Hale. Vermeer's influence was evident in the work of many New England artists, including Benson's friends Joseph DeCamp and Edmund Tarbell. In Figure in a Room the artificial light of previous years has been replaced by sunlight that streams through the heavily draped window. This single light source forms a corona around the figure, juxtaposing it with the foreground objects in deep shadow. The back wall of the room is empty except for an oval mirror. The setting, the artist's Boston studio, and furnishings are familiar, as they appear in a number of paintings from the period. The young woman is dressed in an Oriental jacket, one of several in his collection of studio props. On the foreground table there are an open magazine and a bronze statue of Artemis, by sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt (a cast is in the collection of the NBMAA). Benson and Pratt were members of the faculty at the Museum School in Boston and summer neighbors at North Haven, Maine. The intimate quality is characteristic of work of the Boston School artists; typical of Benson is the blend of portraiture and genre. The downward glance of the woman, the glow of light that envelops her, and the emptiness of the background space reinforce the mood of solitude and contemplation, creating a sense of intrusion, as if the viewer has interrupted a private moment. Benson's paintings are always meticulously composed, with each element arranged for maximum effect. For Benson, design was an assiduous process. Figure in a Room explored the more modern techniques of Impressionism while retaining a nineteenth-century academic emphasis on the figure. The painting is also an effortless demonstration of Benson's virtuosity in evoking mood within a beautifully constructed composition.
On View
On view
