Woman in Blue
Chaïm Soutine
CHAÏM SOUTINE, c.1919. OIL ON CANVAS.
Pain, anguish, and poverty seem to materialise in tortured hands. The flesh and bones distort, fracture, expand, and contract in painful brushstrokes and Soutine, in his depiction of 10 digits, fills them with enough emotion to last a lifetime. Painted in the inter-war years, it depicts an unknown subject - normal for Soutine who rarely depicted anyone he had a personal connection with – whose anonymity does not dampen the psychological intensity of the work. Abstract in its colours and style yet traditional in subject, it never shies away from a seeming revulsion to flesh, creating a caricature of humanity that feels at once absurd and sharply observed. Soutine lived in abject poverty nearly all of his life, often forgoing food in favour of art supplies and channelling his literal hunger into inspiration and drive. The titular women in blue is a stand-in for Soutine himself, her pain is his, their shared lives built upon both universal hardship and the beautiful longing for more that accompanies it.