Woman in Black - John Graham (1943)

This woman, on the other hand, represents the other side of the spectrum. Graham’s Woman in Black gives the audience a sense of eeriness and mystery surrounding this woman.

At first, I thought she looked somewhat doll-like. I can attribute that feeling to the misalignment of her right eye, which looks uncomfortable and unnatural. I noticed in many abstract pieces, humans look disfigured and distorted, mostly likely because many of these abstract pieces dealt with pain and sorrow. This piece is no different, as the woman’s eye gives us the feeling that she is broken, but only subtly.

The color choices are also interesting. Many of the colors clash with each other without any blending (the black of her hair with the pink of her skin, for example). The background is also an uncomfortably bright color. In addition, there is relatively little shading on the woman’s skin, which makes her appear more two-dimensional and therefore stoic. However, the mood of the painting (eerie and mysterious) gives us the sense that something perturbs her.

I came to the conclusion that Graham is trying to critique the oppression of upper-class women. He is saying that women are suffering but they lack the strength to voice their opinions. This woman, for example, looks broken and lifeless, despite her elegant hair and expensive dress.