This painting by Degas is currently exhibited at the MFA of Boston, as part of the current exhibition "Degas and the Nude".
When in front of this painting, I feel like being pushed back and irresistibly attracted to it at the same time. The intimacy of the depicted scene (sometimes wrongly called "The Rape") makes the viewer, I, feel so intrusive that I shouldn't see this, be in the room with the two characters. Because it is what implies this piece: we are a witness of the action taking place in this dim-lighted room, and more than that. The horizon line, thus the viewer's eye hight, is the same as the sitted girl's who turns her back to the standing man. Thus we feel, like her, overwhelmed by his presence, his daunting shadow against the door. He is blocking the way out, we are trapped in the room, in the painting. We have no choice but to turn our back to the menacing male figure, just like she does. If only we could.
Because we are drawn into the painting at the same time: the pictorial, material quality of the paint, its pigments, the details. And more than anything, the light. Coming from one single oil lamp in the middle of the room, on a small table separating the couple, it seems to create shadows more than enlightening the bedroom. Its light goes searching the faces, the features of the man and woman, but only make them seem more unreachable. It reveals the bright pinks of an open suitcase that we can not see in. It tries to reach under the bed, to reveal its mysterious ways captured into its darkness, but inly creates more dark corners, more secrets yet to be revealed, unleashed. It is frightening and beautiful. The tension is unbearable but we are part of it and are compelled to stay: who knows hat terrible thing might happen if we give in and turn our backs to it ?
So I keep watching, captured into the deepness of the mirror behind the lamp, an other unwilling witness in the room, and resist the urge to look away.
It is sublime.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire