Deconstruction of a Prayer

I recently visited the Vancouver art gallery. In fact I’ve been to the gallery five times in as many weeks. The first time I visited and each subsequent time I’ve been deeply moved by a painting called “la priere” The Prayer by: Wilhelm Frederik Christian Carlsen Freddie  (Wilhelm Freddie)

Wilhelm Freddie

(1909-1995).
Danish painter and sculptor. He studied briefly at technical college and at the school of graphic arts of the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen, but he was largely self-taught. Freddie painted his earliest abstracts in 1926, but in 1929 he became acquainted with André Breton’s periodical La Révolution surréaliste.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find a digital copy of the painting anywhere. In lieu of the image I will try and describe it to you and some of the emotions that it evokes in me.

The painting isn’t overly large. Its about 24” x 36” (609mm x 914mm), its framed with a modest wood frame.

The characters/elements within the painting are as follows:

A Woman

A Chair

A Piece of White Fabric

A Step/Platform

A Light Source

An Emptiness

The configuration and placement of the characters/elements are:

The bottom 10^th of the canvas has the woman on her belly, strewn on the floor arms outstretched. Both her head and arms rest uncomfortably on the step/platform, which is located in front of her. If the woman were standing in front of me I would have to say she would probably be of above average height, and thinner than average. Proportionally all of her features seem correct except her feet, which seem small. Within the narrative of the painting the woman has her left foot with the ball of her feet planted on the ground/floor seemingly with the intent of pushing herself forward.

There is a chair, which seems to be gilded, and it straddles the woman near the center of the canvas. The chair straddles the woman between hips and breast. The chair is slightly askew and has a piece of fabric on the seat suggesting someone was just there subduing or subjugating her.

The step/platform exists in front of her to the left. It seems proportionally consistent with a step.

Finally there is the light and the emptiness…

These two characters are important because they create tension, an uneasy balance within the unbalanced nature of the painting. The painting is overwhelmingly void of definition and lacking form. And yet the light, whose unknown origin and milky luminosity define all of the recognizable anxiety within the boundaries of the canvas.

The weight and uncontainable expanse of the void frightens me. The colours that have been used are also disturbing. Had the artist used black it could have been recognizable as void, or empty… Instead he used brown with wisp’s of amber muddied and deep in its texture and colour. This to me is reminiscent of rot, of decay, of death…

The gilded chair is thin and delicate and light, in its simplicity and flaxen glow one almost feels as though the artist is  undermining our reality or defying our expectations . In many ways I believe the viewer is anticipating the appearance of the chair to be incongruent with its actual weight. The colour of the chair compliments the amber wisps in the darkness creating a subconscious association with the two elements.

The coloring of the woman is a delicate alabaster, pale, as though the darkness has slowly consumed her will to live…

The painting as a whole strikes me as a woman whom is on the verge of giving up hope. A woman driven, yet beleaguered by her past present and future. A woman who now rests on a step, stage or alter deciding if she will abandon hope or persist.

As an amalgam…The story I believe is being told is a simple metaphor for marriage. It seems like a subjugated woman at her wedding altar at some point during her marriage struggling with an overwhelming, overpowering spouse whom has left and in his place despair has filled her life. But there is some light and she still retains some resistance and hope for recapturing her momentum and moving forward and out from under the burden of her past.

That’s just my opinion…