Congratulations on receiving an Art History Honorable Mention/ Spring 2022 and best wishes ongoing to:
Kathryn Hayes, Senior at Boston University, Art History major
“Art has always been a passion of mine. I’m not an artist myself, but was raised in an intensely artistic environment in Olympia, Washington. I have been fortunate to grow up surrounded by friends and family who create stunning visual and performing art. Art is the water I grew up swimming in. I have always known that I would want to have art as a core part of my adult life.
My education was consistently focused on international exposure and the arts. I lived in Argentina briefly when I was in middle school, and I participated in a study abroad program my sophomore year of high school in Avignon, France. I then spent my first two years of college studying Art History in Paris and was overjoyed to spend many hours wandering through its infamous museums. It was incredible to be satisfying two dreams: living abroad and improving my language skills as well as experiencing an art capital of the world.
It was while in Paris that I began to feel certain I’d like to work in museums in some capacity, hopefully someday helping to curate collections and bring my love of art to others. I decided to transfer to Boston University to be more academically challenged; I loved the artistic opportunities of living in Paris, but my classes were not as rigorous as I’d have liked.
At Boston University, I’ve enjoyed seminars on art history and in museum studies, becoming further intrigued by museum work through our class discussions. I was fueled by questions of how to make the art world more inclusive, how to decenter the whiteness and patriarchy of the established canon, and how to bring in marginalized communities who have often been excluded from museums. I continue to ponder these questions and hope to continue working to address these important issues as I enter into full-time work in art history.”
Honorable Mention Scholarship Essay / Kathryn Hayes
Compare and contrast the 2 paintings shown below:
“Orchid” and “Recumbent Nude”, by Eileen and Frederic Whitaker, both capture tender and distinct interpretations of the female form. Both works communicate a specific intimacy and interpretation of the female nude, encompassing issues of gender, spectatorship, and love. They invite an exploration of the concept of the naked versus the nude, a distinction explored in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. Berger distinguishes between “nude” and “naked” by denoting the relationship between subject and spectator: to be nude is to be on display while to be naked in a painting is to simply exist without clothes. This critical perspective is useful as a means by which to contextualize the Whitakers’ two distinct works.
Frederic titles his piece “Recumbent Nude”, yet in this piece we see a woman’s private life, not solely a body offered up to be viewed. This is a departure from the Classic birth of nude works, lending itself more to Berger’s categorization of “naked”. The sense of an intimate moment is given to us through a realistic scene and the painter’s attention to detail in crafting the setting. “Recumbent Nude” shows a woman in context, within a home, seen through a loving gaze. The composition is instructive here, for this woman is tucked into a soft, domestic world. The room is wonderfully lived in, hinting at the life that exists beyond this single moment in time: a crumple of blue clothes drape over a stool in the corner, discarded white paper trails across the floor. Dark red and blue make up the wall and rugs, highlighting the pale form at their center. An echo of the warmer tones in her skin is found in the flowers to her right. They blossom joyously, reflecting many of the same shades of her body, subtly drawing parallels between their beauty and her own.The perspective in “Recumbent Nude” also lends a curious intimacy to the scene. Frederic is giving the viewer a glimpse at a love story, a vision of the moment when one lover wakes before the other. A stretch of floor takes up the bottom section of the work, bringing the viewer closer to the woman’s position on the ground. This lower vantage point is also slightly removed in that the artist has left enough space in the frame for her entire body to be visible, moving the viewer further back in the room. Giving this space accentuates the fragileness of her sleep; it is as if he does not want us to get too close and wake her. Instead, he teases us with just the edge of her face, pushing us to yearn for her to turn and reveal herself to us. This piece was created in 1944, coming to life just a year after Frederic met his wife, Eileen. Their love was still brand new at the time of this work, moments like the one in this painting still blissfully steeped in the newly found luck of love. One may infer, therefore, that this scene is inspired by Eileen and their early years together.
Leaping away from the quiet, romantic realism of Frederic’s piece, Eileen gives us a world steeped in imagination with “Orchid”. The scale of the woman in this work is the same as that of the flowers, she appears more akin to a garden fairy or spirit than a real human person. She leans back against the flowers and blue wash of color, appearing as a part of this natural environment or perhaps emerged out of this world. She is posed to sit delicately on an invisible, color-washed and sloping floor. Strands of her hair are blown back in the whimsical suggestion of a breeze. She sits as a content and central part of this world filled with blurry, blooming flowers. In contrast to Frederic’s piece, the female body in “Orchid” is presented with a certain shade of spectacle, her body offered up unabashedly to the viewer. This piece, however, must be informed by its artist as well, a woman herself. Eileen brings us a female interpretation of the nude; her piece is full of life and tranquil freedom.In her use of composition and perspective, Eileen has departed entirely from reality and has chosen to forgo common rules of perspective and depth. The subjects of her piece float up out of nowhere; the background remains empty except for minimal streaks of gray behind the orchid and while she leaves space where the ground might be, there is none. The focus of the work is both the orchid and the woman next to it, bringing the two of them into sharp focus, surrounded by a blurry, fluid space. Eileen presents us with a surrealist world, using it to compare the orchid’s open flower to the woman’s lovely form. Eileen’s piece was created in 1975, only 5 years before her husband’s death in 1980.”Orchid” communicates the perspective of a woman loving her beauty, treasuring and valuing herself in isolation, alone and lovely. The unusual characteristics of the work and departure from reality suggest an internal journey of reflection and self-discovery.
“Recumbent Nude” and “Orchid” came into being at opposite ends of the Whitaker’s lives together. While they are both full of grace in their rendering, these works communicate two different interpretations of femininity to deliver messages that are distinct and personal to the artists. One painting holds the fleeting perfection of an outer world, and the other delivers a personal, emblematic capturing of an inner soul. Despite their differences, these two pieces can each be read as a distinct type of love story, each replete with their own tenderness and grace.
Sources:
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books, 1990.
Eileen Monaghan Whitaker, N.A., Biography. Whitaker Watercolors | The Frederic Whitaker and Eileen Monaghan Whitaker Foundation ,Whitaker Watercolors, 13 Sept. 2018,
whitakerwatercolors.org/eileen-whitaker/biography/.
Frederick Whitaker, N.A., Biography. Whitaker Watercolors | The Frederic Whitaker and Eileen
Monaghan Whitaker Foundation , Whitaker Watercolors, 13 Nov. 2018, whitakerwatercolors.org/frederic/biography/.
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