Blue Interior: Giverny (The Red Ribbon) (Primary Title)
Blue Interior: Giverny (Former Title)
The Red Ribbon (Alternate Title)
Frederick Carl Frieseke, American, 1874 - 1939 (Artist)
"I try as much as possible to make a mirror of the canvas,” Frieseke commented in 1914, two years after his impressionist interiors, garden scenes, and figure studies first captured the attention of American collectors. Living in the little French village of Giverny, made famous by Monet and his garden, the Michigan-born Frieseke was admired by Europeans before he became one of America’s best-known artists. By the end of his life, however, the prevailing winds of abstraction had swept him aside.
Yet Blue Interior contains the seeds of that very abstraction. By dragging a dry brush over the canvas, Frieseke created a vibrant surface of pattern, color, and form tempered by a cool luminosity. He controlled the difficult square format, a hallmark for modernist thinking in the early 20th century, by placing his subject just off center and animating her with a slight twist.
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.