Throughout his long career, Raphael Soyer was preoccupied with the female figure, and he painted numerous images of solitary nude or semiclothed models posing in his studio or home. In the background of his largest painting and artistic manifesto, Homage to Thomas Eakins (1963–1965, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC), Soyer included William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River (1876–1877, Philadelphia Museum of Art) by Thomas Eakins (American, 1844 - 1916), which prominently features a nude model posing in an artist’s studio.
Shown in three-quarter length, the woman in Blond Figure stands off-center toward the right of the composition, next to a table. She is set against a shallow, dark background and pressed close to the picture plane. Her form is softly illuminated by light that emanates from an unseen source on the left. The woman clutches her white slip, seemingly about to remove it. She has turned her head to her left and closed her eyes. Soyer’s expert draftsmanship in delineating anatomical details and drapery folds, a skill derived from years of drawing directly from the model and sketching after the Old Masters, is evident. His subdued palette consists of delicate harmonies of gray, brown, and white.
As with many of Soyer’s subjects, the woman has a disheveled appearance. Her hair is tousled, and one of the straps of her garment is untied. Soyer often represented women in states of partial undress, resulting in paintings with pronounced but ambiguous sexual undertones. The deep drapery folds enhance the subject’s implicit eroticism. The image is intimate, capturing a private, unguarded moment. The model’s withdrawn, remote, and anguished quality imbues the scene with a mysterious sense of melancholy. Lloyd Goodrich noted how Soyer combined psychological and sensual components, with the result that his models appear as lonely figures, “eyes downcast or gazing into space, hands tightly clasped, haunted faces withdrawn into their subjective worlds.”
Soyer’s interest in the psychology of his sitter was indebted to Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669). Blond Figure bears a strong resemblance to A Woman Bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?) [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Rembrandt van Rijn, A Woman Bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?), 1654, oil on oak, National Gallery, London, Holwell Carr Bequest, 1831, NG54. Image © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY as well as other nude and seminude figures by the Dutch artist. Soyer described himself as being “hypnotized” by Rembrandt’s Danaë (1636, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and wrote that “one has to wait for a Degas to find again this profound treatment of a nude, though on a less epic scale.”
Robert Torchia
July 24, 2024
