Mourning Picture, Elmer (1890)

Audio by Annabella Boatwright

Maker: Edwin Romanzo Elmer (1850 – 1923)

Culture: American

Title: Mourning Picture

Date Made:    1890

Type:  Painting

Materials: Oil on canvas

Place Made: Massachusetts

Measurements: 28 x 36 in.

 

Transcript:

I come to this painting every time I’m in the museum, I think, because it’s so uncanny the way it’s been painted, and surreal. There’s this little girl in the front and she’s standing with this lamb, maybe a pet lamb in the front and a kitten, and her toys are kind of out on the grass. And then her parents are behind her sitting outside in these kind of fancy chairs and they’re fully dressed in black, in mourning clothes. And the story behind this painting is the artist, Elmer, his daughter died and so he painted this as kind of a mourning picture. He painted her in the front and the thing about it that’s so surreal and weird to look at is everything is so meticulously painted. There’s every blade of grass and these little tiny flowers and the house in the background is really detailed, all the siding is painted in. And then there are these cracked clouds in the sky that have happened since he painted it, but they kind of add to this weird, surreal feeling that you get looking at the painting. And also no one is interacting with each other. There’s this girl in the front who’s kind of separated from her parents and they’re just sitting in the background and no one is looking at each other. And then you think about what the artist was feeling when he made this painting, how he, you know, it took him probably a really long time to do every blade of grass and every leaf. And it makes you think, you know, if it was meditative or helpful to him when he was mourning.