Marianne von Werefkin artwork from 1917 entitled The Ragpicker
Painted in 1917, this work shows a rag-and-bone man, a kind of urban scavenger, leaning on a stick as he passes in front of an Alpine landscape. He is surrounded by a dark lake, on which a small rowing boat drifts; in the background, mountains rise up to the moon as vast, hooded figures, while the sky explodes in yellow and black. It was around 1917 that Werefkin relocated to the small lake-side town of Ascona in Switzerland, and this may be an early work composed in that setting. The depiction of large, simplified, organic shapes, and the use of intense color contrasts, reveals Werefkin's ongoing interest in the use of non-naturalistic color and shape to express the spiritual depths of people and things. The skeletal appearance of the rag-and-bone man - a surrogate for the stooped women who appears across many of her works - epitomizes Werefkin's concern with the isolation and hardship of the poor city-dweller, while also suggesting the emaciating effects of war. Art historian Laima Lauckaite has pointed out the affinities between paintings such as The Rag-and-Bone Man and those of the Lithuanian painter Čiurlionis. Both artists of Russian heritage, Werefkin and Čiurlionis share a connection to the Romantic and Symbolist traditions, along with a taste "for the motif of mountains, the embodiment of grandeur and eternity". A connection can also be established with works of Edward Munch's such as Despair (1892), which convey the loneliness of the human condition by setting a solitary figure against a dramatic landscape. Despite the urban connotations of its title, The Rag-and-Bone Man is a good example of Werefkin's approach to landscape painting, a genre she explored throughout her life, especially after her relocation to mountainous Switzerland - The Art Story
Size: 7015px × 4754px
Location: Ascona, Switzerland
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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