Giovanni Boldini
le Hamac
circa 1874
Here, nature has transformed itself into a cradle. In its green abundance it crowds around the woman like a great, big cushion, its soft noises soothingly drumming against her temple as if trying to draw out and away her pestering thoughts. From the way the parasol lies on the ground it seems likely that the lady plopped herself down in a kind of sudden exhaustion, one that may have slowly built itself up over time and that caused her to finally tip over and surrender from its weight in the safety of this sympathetic refuge. Her posture is of someone who is willingly giving in to a force they know is greater than any attempt of resisting it. She believes herself to be alone; her slipper-less foot dangles aimlessly over the side of the hamac, her head droops slightly onto the bay of strings and her arms, both outstretched, appear to be miming a silent show of frustration.
But what force could she be welcoming, if any at all? Is it something from within her, like an emotion she has repressed for so long that she can no longer contain it, and that the overpowering presence of nature - its tenacious growth, its lack of boundaries and rules and its disregard, even embracement, for its own irregularities and blemishes - has vehemently awakened it in her? This may be so. A respectable woman as she, judging from her understated jewellery and the frilled finery of her dress, was unquestionably accustomed to living by the rules that her nineteenth century society deemed appropriate for her status, and it is for this reason that she may be so shamelessly shunning them in this scene. She has had enough; she no longer cares about tact or perfection or about forming a pretty picture for those too limited to look beyond their definition of ‘acceptable’ to admire. But rather than trying to change them, her critical audience, she chooses a different path of assault, which is to relinquish herself to the origin of all things, to the hands of nature, in the midst of everything wild and openly pure as if she were being born again. And it is now that she knows what it is to be cradled and soothed, and to be reassured of the beauty in facing with pride rather than with shame whatever she has denied herself, and others, the most.
