Standing Woman

Jean-Jacques Henner

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a woman with pale, almost white-colored skin looks out at us in this hazy, shadowy vertical painting. The setting is painted with smudged browns around a corner of electric-blue sky at the upper right. The woman rests her right elbow, to our left, up on a surface, presumably a rocky ledge, but details are difficult to make out. Her shoulders are angled slightly to our left, but her face is turned to us. She looks out with dark eyes under lowered brows. At first glance she seems to look at us, but a closer look shows that outlining around her irises and eyelids indicates that she looks slightly up and to our right. Her lips are closed, and her chin is tucked back. Copper-red hair is parted down the middle and gleams along the center part before falling quickly into shadow as it reaches down past her hips. She rests her chin against a closed fist of the arm propped on the ledge. The other hand sits next to the elbow on the ledge. One sapphire-blue sleeve falls off her sleeveless, low-cut dress, which falls straight off the bottom edge of the painting. The scene is painted with blended strokes, including the woman’s features, so has a soft, ethereal look. The artist signed the brown area near the lower left with honey-yellow paint, “J J HENNER.”