A True Romantic
We have to ask if this beautiful young woman might in fact be Johnson's wife. We know that he was married about six years before he painted The Girl I Left Behind Me. Coincidentally, the National Museum of American Art also has an 1888 painting that he made of Mrs. Johnson. The paint handling is broader and the shading is more forceful than in The Girl I Left Behind Me. Still there is a certain correspondence in the profile view, the inner intensity, and the determination of the face. It's hard to believe, however, that this woman could be a grown-up version of the beautiful young girl painted 15 years earlier.
Like a true romantic, Johnson makes nature mirror his subject's emotions. The clouds break above this windswept hill, silhouetting the girl's face with cameo-like perfection against the light. Her body is anchored by her feet placed exactly at right angles, while the storm swirls around her. Her cape blows open to reveal the cascade of scarlet lining, which sets off an exposed ankle but is then pinned securely beneath the heel of a boot. In every detail, she represents the struggle of passion and will.
Pictured: Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson,ca. 1888, Eastman Johnson, oil on canvas, 31 3/8 x 22 7/8 in. (79.7 x 58.0 cm.),
Gift of Daniel Cowin.
Also Pictured (in background): Eastman Johnson, The Girl I Left Behind Me,
1870-75; oil, 42 x 34 7/8 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible in part by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice in memory of her husband and by Ralph Cross Johnson.
Part 3
Discussion:
The Girl
I Left
Behind Me
(451K)
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