In trying to find women dressed in layers in art, I chanced upon this hauntingly quiet painting by Kyriak Kostandi, 1852-1921. It is titled "To the World" in one place, and "Among the People" in another place. Kostandi was a Ukrainian painter. He was a strict realist, and according to Wikipedia, "realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation."
I am so very happy to have a realistic painting of this girl captured for all time, almost a photograph of her, caught in reverie on a train going who knows where. By the look of her, perhaps even she does not quite know where she is going.
She is dressed in what we would call a "peasant costume," but this must have been an ordinary dress to her, although perhaps it is her very best dress, maybe her only dress. I love her kerchief and her large plump bag, sitting beside her like a pillow.
I long to know if she is running away, if all her worldly goods are in her bag, and what is she thinking about so wistfully, with one finger crooked in the air at the window, like a little signal.
She is looking into the world, but whether it be the world outside the
window or the world in her heart, we cannot know for sure. One way or
the other, she is seeing something that we cannot see. And, to tell the
truth, I have the impression that she is tired. Tired beyond words. And
feeling a little without hope about something, for she does not have
even the ghost of a smile, as if she were in a place beyond both smiles
and tears.
One of the titles of this painting, "Among the People," fills up the painting with all the people on this train that we cannot see. A trainload of people. But this girl seems so very isolated. Perhaps she feels trapped in a life that is shutting her off from her dreams. Perhaps something has happened that she cannot face having to bear. I have been there myself, many times, living on the tiniest little flame of hope imaginable.
Oh, let us hope a little flame burns somewhere inside her forever!
And isn't it amazing how we can read a painting as if it were a novelette?? I wonder if the painter meant for someone like me to imagine quite so much about his painting. I can't help it. I have this feeling that in a minute she will start rummaging around in her bag and pull out some yarn and a pair of knitting needles, or a notebook and a pen!
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