I chose a painting called In Deep Thought by Alfred Stevens, which can be found at the St. Louis Art Museum in Gallery 217. Stevens painted in it 1881 and it is oil on canvas. It is 18 3/4 x 23 1/4 in. I learned he was known for painting scenes of modern life during his lifetime. The painting shows a woman in a pink dress sitting at a table with her puppy at her feet, near the shore of a port in La Havre, France.
In this painting a young woman in a pink dress is gazing out at the sea, sitting at a glass table where her matching hat is resting. The woman’s pink dress is long-sleeved and ruffled at the bottom. Her hat has pink flowers and a black ribbon. It is sitting on the very edge of the clear glass table. The chair she is sitting in is in the only chair by the matching table. The lady has all of her reddish-brown hair pulled back, except for her bangs. She is wearing a simple, silver bracelet on her left wrist. I wish her shoes were visible, but they are lost under her dress. Her small, brown and white dog is sitting near her feet. There is a rock border and a fence separating the shore from where she sits. There are trees covering half of her view outward. It is a cloudy day, and in the distance you can see several ships out to sea.
This painting has a vertical line and horizontal line variation, like the one that can be found in our art book (Frank 22). Several shapes are noticeable in this painting. The ground beneath the woman’s feet appears as a triangle, the rocks that help create the border are circular, the fence is a rectangular shape, and the ships in the background are triangular. All of them can be considered positive shapes, except perhaps the ships. They are in the background so they would be considered negative shapes. The painting realistic and is balanced by having the woman be in close focus, while the ships at sea are in the distance.
I feel Stevens was trying to communicate that the young woman in the painting was contemplating where she was in life at the time. Not only the title of the painting tells us this, but the form of the painting does as well. The way the woman is gazing out to sea, the expression on her face, and how she has her head resting on her hand all show us that she is in deep thought and really considering something. The colors used are dark and muted. Many browns and grays were used. Some blues for the sky and the sea were also used. The lightest colors in the painting are the young woman’s muted pinkish mauve dress, and the dog’s white fur.
Alfred Stevens was born in Brussels in 1823, but lived in France most of his life. He left middle school to attend art school and ended up transferring to one of the best art schools of his time. The height of his career was in the early 1880’s. He liked to study women, which explains why women are the focus of most of his painting. He captured their boredom, loneliness, and sadness through art. During his final days, he spent a lot of time near the sea, which is why many of his paintings from that period are set on the shore. The woman featured in the painting I chose was a friend of Stevens’ and was also in at least two of his others paintings entitled, Mere et Ses Enfants and Looking Out To Sea, respectively.
Alfred Stevens’ paintings are valued anywhere from $9,000 for a small work to over $1 million dollars for a very rare and larger work. There are very few pieces of the painter’s that are privately owned and not in museums. I liked many things about this painting. I liked the mood of it, its age, and the attire of the young woman. I enjoy comparing how things were then versus how they are now. She looks to be around my age, possibly a bit older, and to compare how life was for her then compared to how it is for me now was something that really stuck with me as I walked throughout the museum. I feel like the painting also reminded me of where I am at in life right now. There have been instances this year, where I have needed time to simply sit and think about where I am at, what am I doing, and where I am going. I identified with the lady in the painting, and felt that was something that was not easily done. As I studied it, I wondered if perhaps she was going through some of the things I was also going through. Although time has changed a lot, people still have a lot of the same struggles. Perhaps Stevens’ was trying to convey that the woman was in a crossroad in her life, and trying to decide what she should do. The work was inexhaustible to me because I made a list of several paintings that I liked and even took photos of them, but this one really stood out to me. It took me days to decide which one, but I ultimately went with this one because I could identify with the young woman.
Before this assignment, this painting would have been just another painting to me. Studying the painting really challenged me to get into the artist’s head and see what he saw. Not only to study the painting, but to see the work in person and then do the research about it, created a whole other experience. I enjoyed putting myself in the artist’s shoes and seeing what he saw.