François-Louis David Bocion
Célestine
circa 1884
A child sitting in a
tree. She casually dangles her bare feet and legs down the spine of its trunk
and she looks at us with an indirect stare - is she daydreaming? Around her the
air is clear. Two poultry move lazily along the ground, perhaps looking for a
bit of forgotten feed, and a pair of roughly-cut stone blocks rests at the base
of the girl's perch. They seem cool and smooth, just as Lac Léman in the
distance, and they remain as firmly attached to the ground as the house itself,
probably generations' old.
Notice that dividing
the girl from the dwelling, and from the actual dirt floor beneath her, is the
fine line of clothing hung out to dry in the wind. This sits just below the
picture's centre, with its opaque colouring allowing it to easily blend in with
its surroundings. Maybe this detail indicates that the child is daydreaming - that she has mentally
separated herself from the material world in search of a solitude different
from, or even better than, that depicted in the scene. The line of clothes, a
sign of domesticity and labour, acts to 'divide' the girl in both the vertical
and horizontal planes of existence, placing her up high in the safe cradle of
nature. Only the branches and sky frame her figure, allowing just her feet to make
contact with cultivation (are they not the only part of her that 'touch' the slanted roof?) and showing
her as she truly is: a child lost in translation.
However, whether she chooses
to remain grounded in reality or to escape and drift into the unknown, like
the ship in the distance, we may only guess.
