L'Apéritif (Primary Title)
William J. Glackens, American, 1870 - 1938 (Artist)
Seated at a banquette, elbows propped on a café table, an angular woman holds a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. Despite the brilliant colors of her clothing, her mood is gloomy. Garish makeup clashes with her solitary contemplation; the heavily shadowed eyes and boldly painted lips appear clownish against the whitened face. The emotional incongruity between the riotous color and the subdued subject extends to her surroundings. The green and gold of the striped bench lend an unhealthy sheen to the flesh on her hands. Moreover, whereas the wall mirror reveals a tableau of crowded patrons, the woman is alone in the multitude. Glackens’s loud palette, employed imprecisely with energetic strokes, serves to exploit the sitter’s quiet isolation, highlighting the glass as a source of consolation and invoking the paradoxical harshness of urban life.
James W. and Frances Gibson McGlothlin Collection
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