Skeleton is a haunting piece suggestive of loneliness and isolation. A lone figure stands in a strange, multi-colored landscape. A strong wind appears to be blowing, so strong that the figure’s lines have begun to blur, as though the wind is tearing away at the very substance of the lone figure. The figure itself is merely skeletal, as the title suggests, diminished to only a bare scrap of its previous self.
The loneliness of living in this strange landscape has torn away at the figure in the painting. The wind, representing his loneliness, has blown away everything but the skeleton outline of the person. This painting is a beautiful, evocative image of isolation and its effects on a human being. The landscape of the painting is strange and beautiful, but it is not naturalistic. It is shown to be a place inhospitable to human happiness, as the skeleton of the painting is being torn apart slowly by existing in this environment. In this way, the painting asserts that loneliness is an unnatural state for humanity, a race of beings who long for contact and connection with others.
©1998-2009 Claretta Taylor Webb. All Rights Reserved
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