Twilight Awakening

1978

Betye Saar

Artist, American, born 1926

A scene with a person holding a cornucopia is set against a night sky on this wood block. The person has peachy-brown skin and long silvery hair. A piece of drapery, also silver, flows around the hips as the person holds a cornucopia angled down and to the left. Blue and green material pours or hangs out of the horn. The person is contained within a silver oval frame. Fifteen green teardrop- or sperm-shaped orbs approach the oval to the left and fourteen approach from the right. Everything described so far is shown in low relief on the wood block. A translucent star is pinned or nailed to the panel near the top left corner and a translucent, crescent moon to the top right. To either side of the person are textured triangular shapes. The form to the left is green and points up, like a mountain, and the form to the right is blue and points in, like a cresting wave. Both have ragged edges and appear to be carved and affixed with nails, the heads of which are visible. Two translucent rectangles, possibly the same material as the star and moon, lie side-by-side between the green and blue forms on the bottom edge of the block.
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On View

East Building Upper Level, Gallery 415-B


Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing and looking at us with her head tilted a little to our left in this vertical portrait painting. She has pale skin, a heart-shaped face with rosy cheeks, and a rose-pink bow mouth. Thin, arched, sable-brown eyebrows frame her gray eyes. A wreath of pale pink flowers and curling white ostrich feathers crowns her long gray hair, which is piled high on her head. Loose curly tendrils brush both shoulders. Her glowing, silver satin gown is trimmed with delicate sheer lace around the wide, plunging neckline and sleeves, and has a pink sash around her narrow waist. Pearl bracelets adorn her wrists. She leans to her left, our right, to rest her left elbow against a waist-high, cinnamon-brown stone pedestal, which is decorated with a bronze-colored garland and bow on the side facing us. A ring of blue, yellow, red, and pink flowers, woven with strands of ivy, dangles in the hand resting on the pedestal. Her right hand hangs loosely by her side. Along the left edge of the dimly lit background, a tree with a thick trunk angles into the upper left corner. A smaller sapling grows just in front of it. On the right, bushes with olive and fern-green leaves dotted with lilac-purple flecks rise above the pedestal. Dark clouds fill most of the top third of the canvas but they part around her head to reveal the soft blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in white in the lower right corner, “L. Vigée Le Brun 1782.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Francine Farr; gift 2015 to NGA.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

on the front edge of the block: © Betye Saar 1978

Wikidata ID

Q63863810


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