Artwork Detail

Brocart de Venise (Venetian Brocade)
c. 1904–5
American, 1851–1938
Oil on panel
19 1/2 x 25 1/2 "
University purchase, Bixby Fund, 1906
WU 2177
Thomas Wilmer Dewing was associated with Tonalism, a practice of painting rooted in the idealism and spiritualism of late nineteenth-century America. Tonalist works are characterized by emotion, mood, and poetic impulse rather than an objective transcription of reality. Here Dewing depicts two upper-class women in a moment of domestic leisure. Confined to a rarefied interior realm that is notably sealed off from the contemporary mechanized, industrial world, the women appear detached and isolated, both physically and psychologically. The soft uniformity of Dewing’s paint application causes these genteel figures to blend into their surroundings, reducing their role to a largely decorative one and communicating an overall feeling of bourgeois ease or, conversely, malaise. The prominent placement of the woman in the foreground, who seems lost in reverie as she listens to the music of the harpsichord, may also suggest the salutary effect of music on the soul, reflecting the Tonalist understanding of composition and color tones as a counterpoint to the palliative experience of musical harmony. [Permanent collection label, 2016]