Morning Sun

Museum of Art in Columbus, the USA.

Canvas, oil.

The artist created this painting at the age of 70; he embodied all the same themes of existentialism that had been inherent in his canvases since the 1920s. The painting depicts the wife of the artist, Joe, aged 68. She sits on a neat flat bed and looks out of the window. The morning sun streams through the glass, highlighting the figure and making it sculpturally expressive against the backdrop of a blank wall. The artist hid the details of the ageing face and figure with an apparent lack of details; her expression is ambiguous: perhaps thoughtfully or regretting. As in most of his works, the figure is included in the interior to convey the mood or offer a psychological effect, and not be a portrait of a particular person. In addition to the transmission of drama, noted in other works, absolute light plays an important role here.