La Toilette, Richard Emile Miller

Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Sean Barker
Richard Miller’s La Toilette shows an elegantly dressed, red-headed woman in a domestic interior who entwines a beaded necklace in the fingers of her left hand and examines her appearance in a small mirror held in the right. The subject of ethereal feminine beauty and an interest in atmospheric effect were typical for Miller, an American who studied in Paris before returning to the United States upon the outbreak of World War I. Indeed, his use of vibrant color applied in dynamic, broken strokes reflects his investment in an Impressionist style. Like many artists who employed Impressionism to depict female beauty, Miller draws a parallel between a woman at her toilette, or in the act of making up her face, to the painter’s art of applying pigment to canvas to represent a scene. Each is artifice.

Archive Label:
Best known for his figure painting in the conservative tradition, Richard Miller lived in Paris during the post impressionist era and studied at the Académie Julian. Although the school was strictly academic in its approach and subscribed to a literary and sentimental form of naturalism, influences of the avant-garde can be observed in La Toilette. In this painting an unknown lady in her boudoir tends to her last minute adjustments, a popular subject in the early twentieth century. As light emanates from different sources, the woman's body is rendered in a naturalistic sytle, contrasting the flat areas of the dress and walls.