Manierre Dawson
oil on canvas
30 by 24 inches
Gift of Dr. Lewis Obi, Frank McKeown and Lefferts Mabie, 1980
Collection of the Illinois State Museum
The year 1915 was momentous for young Manierre Dawson on several fronts: not only did he decide to commit himself completely to farming, but the twenty-eight year-old artist married Lillian Boucher, a neighboring farm girl ten years his junior.
This painting was created two years after his artistic confirmation at the Art Institute of Chicago’s presentation of the Armory Show. We see a female looking out a window. The subject of a figure by the window is a classic theme. In his Figure by the Window Dawson swears allegiance to tradition by employing the time-honored theme but declares his independence from its reliance on content and illusionism.
Randy Ploog, in his 2003 essay “Metaphor and Autobiography in the Art of Manierre Dawson”, posits that Dawson borrowed major compositional elements of his Figure by the Window from Johannes Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (1660-67). Certainly Dawson has shifted the ambience of the picture. Vermeer’s young woman is a picture of calm composure. In Dawson’s treatment, an aura seems to emanate from the woman’s central position outward, like waves of energy affecting everything they encounter. The space folds and refolds until it is almost unrecognizable. Perhaps this is a visual metaphor for the newlyweds’ relationship.