Ennui

Ennui, a Post-Impressionist painting by British painter Walter Sickert (1860–1942) is a portrait of domestic drama.

In this painting we see a couple, together but alone, in an interior room. The man sits in his chair, leaning back while smoking a cigar, seemingly oblivious to anything else but his own thoughts. The woman, probably his wife, leans against the dresser with listless posture as she stares straight ahead at the wall. Sickert creates a mood of dreariness and desolation perhaps the result of many years of an unhappy marriage. The furniture appears to close in on them, calling out the relationship they are trapped in. Sickert uses muted tones of yellow, browns, and oranges to add to the scene of thick despair. Ennui shows Sickert’s characteristic use of broken touches of paint and lack of finish that is familiar in all of his work.

Sidenote: In 2002, crime novelist Patricia Cornwell wrote a nonfiction book proposing a theory that Walter Sickert was the 19th-century serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. Many historians and legal experts have refuted this theory.

- Heidi Werber

P.S. Here you can see more (not always so dramatic) art of domesticity. There is a lot of art inspired by the home, likely also the case during the past year...