Labyrinth of Solitude is divided into thirteen individual sections, each of which brings together one historical and one contemporary painting. The pairings are based on affinities having to do with subject matter or theme, formal or other aesthetic connections, compositional dialogues, or mood and attitude.

Death 

To be, or not to be, that is the question. One could describe death, the end of one’s life, as the ultimate form of solitude. The act of dying is the final moment we experience, and we ultimately undergo it alone. While death is generally perceived as the opposite of life, it should perhaps be understood as an inevitable part of life. In many ways it seems irrational to be fearful of death, and perhaps periods of solitude can help us to prepare ourselves for death—a stage during which we might look back and realize that despite the company we kept, we were alone all the way.

Michele Giambono’s The Man of Sorrows (ca. 1430) depicts Christ upright in his coffin. He has been taken down from the cross, which is still visible in the background, and streams of blood trail from the stigmata on his hands, from the crown of thorns, and from the wound to his chest, punctured by the Lance of Longinus. Next to Jesus is a grieving Saint Francis, who according to Christian mythology himself received the five stigmata while praying in the mountains of Verna and later died of his wounds. The gruesome scene is housed in an elaborate wooden frame in gold and polychromy typical of the Gothic style.

The Polish painter Jakub Julian Ziółkowski has for many years painted frightening and apocalyptic scenes with a remarkable force and consistency. While the aesthetics are rather different, one is tempted to perceive an underlying relationship with the work of Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, in particular his masterpiece Dekalog (1989), a ten-hour-long film about the Ten Commandments set in Warsaw shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain, which speaks of daily life’s existential questions and ethical tribulations: faith, love, death, hatred. All of these we readily find in Ziółkowski’s work, yet unlike the films, the paintings visualize those questions and conflicts in bright colors and nightmarish, terrifying, and somewhat uncanny scenarios. Such macabre intensity is rare among contemporary artists. The work combines the dark aspects of Surrealism, Gothicism, and ultra-macabre medieval religious paintings by artists such as Hieronymus Bosch. Somewhere in the distance are perhaps also influences of Francisco Goya and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, specifically The Triumph of Death (1562).

Giambono’s and Ziółkowski’s works are both about death. In the former we know who has just died; in the latter it is unclear but we know from the title, Hospitalized (2020), that it’s a sick, possibly dying person. Does the terrifying beast-creature hovering above represent the patient’s inner turmoil? Something from his nightmares? A demon trying to seize his soul? Note how Ziółkowski picks up on the Gothic trope of the gilded frame, which in this case is painted directly onto the canvas.

Dreams

Religion, science, and philosophy have all long struggled to explain dreams and where they come from. Dreams are sequences of images and sounds that materialize in our minds while we are asleep, involving various emotions, memories, and sensations, yet we do not know their exact purpose. If we subscribe to the idea that dreams are a window into the unconscious, they might just be the ultimate form of solitude. While we generally encounter others in our dreams, no one else can see or experience them. Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud is the person most strongly associated with connecting dreams and the unconscious, yet his theory that dreams are a mechanism of psychological repression has been heavily scrutinized by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre (see Being and Nothingness), Erich Fromm (see Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Thought), and many others. Dreams were a key area of interest for the Surrealists, who understood them as a subversive force with which to combat rational thinking.

Leonora Carrington’s Self-Portrait (ca. 1937–38), one of the artist’s most recognizable works, has often been called her first truly Surrealist painting. It features the artist, a scampering hyena, and a white and tailless rocking horse flying above her head in an otherwise empty room. Through the window we see a white horse with a tail. The symbolism here is powerful: the horses speak of freedom, while the hyena suggests wild and undomesticated energy.

Quintessa Matranga’s Sleeping in My Dreams (2019) is equally surreal, yet expresses notably more anxiety and fear, and the symbols are less legible. We see the artist chained into her bed, hanging by a hook in space, the entire apparatus handled by a robot-like vehicle whose long arms resemble menacing mechanical tentacles. The character’s confinement to an old-fashioned bed and the insect-like creature inevitably bring to mind Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915). Kafka often touched on the darker sides of dreams and understood solitude as alienation caused by psychological brutality, bureaucratic mazes, or supernatural transformations.

Mind

The Italian writer Italo Calvino once remarked: “Reading is solitude. One reads alone, even in another’s presence.” In times of isolation, one realizes that while our bodies are cut off from the world, our minds need not be if we feed them with cognitive simulation. Reading keeps the brain active, can provide tranquility, and in the best cases transports us to otherwise inaccessible realms. We might read to escape our grim reality, or to encounter other peoples’ opinions and experiences.

While both of these paintings depict a young woman holding a book, the one in Jenna Gribbon’s If a woman reads a book in the forest but no one is there to see it... (2020) is deeply immersed in the story, while the one in Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s Comtesse de la Châtre (1789) seems to treat the book almost like a prop, perhaps to indicate her education and sophistication. The former sits on a folding chair in nature, wearing heavy work boots, shorts, and socks with kitten faces, and the latter sits comfortably on a salon couch wearing a beautiful dress. Neither work offers us a clue as to what the book’s title or author is.

Vigée Le Brun is famous for her remarkably skilled portraits, mainly of members of the eighteenth-century French upper class and especially of Queen Marie Antoinette, whom she painted more than thirty times. In these portraits, every element of the subject’s environs has been carefully selected, and viewers with knowledge of the context will perceive its specific relation to the sitter. Gribbon is more intentionally vague in this respect. Her character, while depicted in nature, does not seem to care much for her surroundings, fixating instead on her book. It is tempting to infer from the fact that she is sitting on a chair, rather than directly on the ground, that she is interested in the outdoors, but not inclined to be immersed in nature. Did she get that bloody knee while hiking to the spot depicted? Is that a partial reason for her depicted ambivalence toward the outdoors?

Impulse

While most works in this presentation are representations of solitude, these two paintings speak more about solitude as pure form, dissociated from depictions of visual reality. This disassociation might propose a heightened state of solitude and fully inward-looking form of art making. Could abstraction be understood as a form of self-preservation—in other words, insisting on one’s “safe” (social) distance from the world of humans and objects and its attendant unpredictability?

Yanyan Huang’s Cloud Poem Twirly (2019) seems to operate somewhere in between intense force and chaos on the one hand, and delicacy on the other. The composition centers on one gesture, to which she adds other marks and lines that pop up here and there to finally weave chords together into a visual and emotional structure. The artist made the work after observing the sky, and in particular clouds that glide seemingly randomly, in all kinds of shapes and forms.

Lee Krasner is one of the most interesting artists now classified under the label of Abstract Expressionism. Her range and output were arguably more diverse and nuanced than those of her mostly male peers, who often took a more excessive and untidier route. Here we see her Untitled (1948), which bears a strong formal relationship to Huang’s work in its gestural abstraction—an anti-figurative aesthetic involving spontaneity, strong brushstrokes, and an emphasis on the visibility of the painter’s hand movements. While both paintings visualize an inner emotional state, Huang’s work speaks perhaps more of expressions related to a solitary and spiritual world, its marks and lines recalling East Asian calligraphy. Krasner’s work evokes a more aggressive approach, and might refer to her apparent issues with insomnia, or to chaotic, violent, abstract dreams.

Nature 

Many writers and artists have observed that encountering nature at its most sublime can be overwhelming, and can forge a deep bond between us and the natural world. When experienced in solitude, nature becomes our companion, and we perceive it with heightened awareness. Today Romanticism, an artistic movement of the late eighteenth century, comes readily to mind when we speak of the relation between art and nature. Romanticism was in many ways not only a reaction to the rationalization of the world brought forward by the Enlightenment, but also a response to rapid industrialization and the attendant changes to daily life—for instance the shift from living by the seasons to living by the clock. The Romantics proposed a “back to nature” ethos—celebrating nature as inspiring, magical, full of untamed energy and beauty—that was antithetical to the industrialized world, which they perceived as alienating, turning humans into robots and nature into a commodity. Epitomizing this attitude is Julius von Leypold’s Wanderer in the Storm (1835), in which we see a solitary figure taking a walk on a stormy day, the only evidence of other humans a disintegrating wall. 

Maaike Schoorel’s paintings often dance between figuration and abstraction. Their enormous subtlety, their extreme elusiveness, forces the viewer to look ever more intently even to discern whether the work at hand is a portrait, a landscape, or a still life. Schoorel’s Rügen Sunlight (2020) depicts a dark landscape on the German island of Rügen, known for its exuberant nature and dramatic coastline; indeed, it is home to the very spot where the most famous Romantic painter of them all, Caspar David Friedrich, painted his iconic Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (1818). But here, all we can make out for certain is a faint ray of sunlight reflecting on the sea and some vegetation in the foreground. As with all of Schoorel’s paintings, it seems as if the artist is whispering to us. We understand only fragments of what she is trying to tell.

Idleness

Extended periods of solitude can induce lethargy, sluggishness, apathy. Yet in these two works, we infer that the personage depicted is enacting a highly conscious form of inactivity. They celebrate indolence in an ostentatious manner. In John White Alexander’s Repose (1895), we witness an upper-class type of idleness in which the lady of the house is free to be a lounger thanks to her domestic workers; in centuries past, such a situation was a marker of high social status. Constance Tenvik’s I have more memories than if I’d lived a thousand years (Edoardo spacing out) (2020) depicts a bohemian dreaminess that seems more subversive. The painting portrays a friend of the artist, whom in contemporary parlance would be described as a slacker, someone who eschews the “obligatory” nine-to-five and other societal institutions and expectations.

Identity 

The self-portrait as a typology has been with us for centuries. While some traditional examples are rather idealized, for instance many such by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (also represented in this exhibition), some modernist painters like Vincent van Gogh or Helene Schjerfbeck depicted themselves in distress, and perhaps thus more realistically and accurately, innovating the self-portrait as a modern mode of self-exploration. A self-portrait can be a practical outlet for an artist—the subject one paints when models are scarce—but it can also be a mirror for the solitary artist, a way of plumbing one’s own existence that depicts not only appearance but also feelings, whether of happiness or distress. It presents to the world how the artist wants to be seen and recognized, but also reveals something more abstract, and telling, about their underlying sense of self. (And certainly, there is the prevalent school of thought that every work an artist makes, of anything, is in some way a self-portrait.)

In Quarantine Self-Portrait (2020), Juan Araujo looks at us through such a haze that without the title, we likely would never recognize him. In Self-Portrait (1912–13), Giorgio de Chirico looks pointedly away from us, showing only his profile. Both are atypical as self-portraits in that they obscure, rather than facilitate, our connection with the artist. Also interesting in this pairing is that neither de Chirico nor Araujo is particularly known for self-portraiture; they are far more famous for their paintings of architecture, whether real or imagined. Perhaps here they are insinuating that the self is yet another kind of construction.

Vanity 

These days, the word “vanity” prompts thoughts about social media, in particular Instagram and selfie culture. But in the traditional sense, vanity refers to any excessive admiration of one’s own appearance. It is a close relative of narcissism, a form of self-absorption that goes beyond high regard for one’s looks and delves into exaggerated selfishness, entitlement, lack of compassion, even exhibitionism.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt’s Denise at Her Dressing Table (ca. 1908–09) is remarkable for its play with reflections. We see the sitter from the front and the back simultaneously thanks to a mirror behind her, and likewise she can see herself front and back by using her hand mirror. Yet she is not looking at us, as if to ask what we make of her appearance; she is busy gazing into the hand mirror to inspect the tidiness of her hair. Delia Brown’s Modern Girl (yellow top) (2018) presents another young woman, this one wearing a tight yellow shirt and blue jeans, holding a miniature dog while taking a selfie.

It is easy to see selfies as contemporary forms of the portrait paintings commissioned in previous centuries. In both cases they are strongly associated with identity performance. Our physical appearance, the holiday destinations we pick, whatever wealth we choose to flaunt, and the social roles we play are designed to project a version of ourselves we want the world to see. Whether it corresponds with our true persona is of little importance. The digital self becomes its own reality.

Absence

Probably no other twentieth-century US painter created such an influential vision of modern society as Edward Hopper. His influence cannot be overestimated; many of his works, rural and urban scenes alike, have become icons, for instance Nighthawks (1942) and Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine (1927). Unlike other Realist painters of his era such as John Sloan, Andrew Wyeth, or Charles Burchfield, he depicted mostly quiet moments, either omitting people or treating them as marginal to the composition. His urban scenes speak of solitude and alienation rather than social interactions. (One perceives in Hopper’s subtle style an affinity with the photographs of Walker Evans, who likewise depicted America with understatement.) From Williamsburg Bridge (1928) is a case in point. The title refers to an object that is hardly in the picture; we only see a tiny bit of the bridge’s railing at the bottom of the painting. In a distant top-floor window, an anonymous, almost unnoticeable figure sits in solitude. 

Mario Moore’s Lonely Tire (2020) is a self-portrait in an urban setting—perhaps New York, where the artist is living, or Detroit, where he was born. Moore often speaks of his admiration for the work of Hughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), an artist who, while in major museum collections, is underappreciated. Lee-Smith’s paintings seem to bring together Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico, or suggest painted film stills from a movie by Federico Fellini. A surreal and desolate character dominates. One of his best-known works is Boy with a Tire (1952), in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art. Lonely Tire is a direct reference to this Lee-Smith work—a consideration of the possible loss of the boy in the original painting. Was he affected by a virus or killed by police? His shadow remains as a reminder of him. Both Hopper’s and Moore’s works are enigmatic, featuring solitary figures in eerie surroundings, and in Moore’s case expressing the experience of being African American. Yet the air of ambiguity that pervades his work speaks to anyone who is alienated, whether by chance or choice.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past. George Harvey’s Rainstorm—Cider Mill at Redding, Connecticut (ca. 1840) was not, for the artist, a depiction of a nostalgic subject, but for many of us today, it will trigger nostalgia for a simpler, more solitary time. In the center of the scene we see a barn on an apple farm, housing a press and barrels. The farmer is pressing apples to make juice, from which he will produce cider. It is raining heavily and the farmer’s horse is inside the barn, protected from the weather. A customer with an umbrella is arriving. This place is clearly in the country, far away from the urban hustle and bustle.

Harvey’s work is paired with Cynthia Talmadge’s Chasen’s (2020), a view of the iconic West Hollywood restaurant of that name, now closed but once a regular hangout for the likes of Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Sinatra. Its heyday was the 1940s through the 1960s, the classic Hollywood era. But in Talmadge’s painting, the once-bustling nightlife spot has already shut its doors and sits on Beverly Boulevard like a relic, in solitude and silence. A melancholic atmosphere dominates, yet with a dose of irony for those who know that by the end of its run in 1995, Chasen’s was infamous for its bad food, shabby ambiance, terrible service, and shameless prices.

While in many respects these two paintings could not be more different—one a pastoral scene set in nineteenth-century Connecticut, the other a celebrity hangout in Southern California—both represent facets of bygone American culture, history, geography, and heritage. We also see striking similarities in composition. Note how both works rely heavily on observations of times of the day and particular weather conditions, specifically rain: in one work the rain slants from the right side, in the other from the left. The large tree at right in the former echoes the lamppost in the latter, and both buildings have awnings.

Resurrection 

In moments of crisis, humans often doubt their sense of self—perhaps even psychically fall apart, or at the very least change their perspective. In Cubism, as represented here by Pablo Picasso’s Dora Maar in an Armchair (1939), objects and individuals are essentially broken up and put back together, restored but in an abstract fashion. Picasso was also one of the first to apply collage elements—objects and ephemera from the “real” world—to an oil painting. This portrait depicts Surrealist photographer Dora Maar in a radically distorted style, the elements of her face and body broken apart and reconstructed in a manner quite unlike what the eye ordinarily perceives. It seems relevant that this was one of artist’s first works made after the outbreak of World War II, one of the most destructive events in human history.

The woman depicted in Fabrizio Arrieta’s Alena (2018) looks somewhat sadly and longingly into the distance. Very much following ideas of Cubism and collage painting, the piece was “constructed” from images the artist gathered from contemporary fashion magazines and advertisements. Most of Arrieta’s works are portraits of individuals or groups of them who have been deformed, twisted, and obscured. The influence of the early twentieth-century avant-garde is obvious, but Arrieta seems also to speak to the alienation we experience in this century, in which our identities are themselves collages of the visual imagery propelling consumerism. Arrieta’s practice certainly is also influenced by the Chicago Imagists such as Jim Nut, Barbara Rossi, and Art Green, who were known for their often grotesque and surreal work. 

Isolation 

Many of Edvard Munch’s paintings deal with some form of solitude, generally related to fear, anxiety, or alienation. In Night in Saint-Cloud (1893) we see the Danish poet Emanuel Goldstein isolated in Munch’s apartment in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud during a cholera outbreak. He is sitting at the window, looking out onto the Seine and the moonlit night. As with so many Munch paintings, the atmosphere is melancholic and dark, yet also poetic and romantic. Notice the drapes on each side of the painting, framing the scene and amplifying its eerie and solitary atmosphere.

Clayton Schiff’s Nightly Ritual (2019) has a likewise uncanny, mysterious character, but it is entirely devoid of romantic or poetic sentiment. Rather, we feel transported into a parallel reality or a place far in the future, perhaps during another pandemic. Schiff depicts what seems to be a patient in a hospital connected to all sorts of machines and tubes, some of which go straight into the eyeballs and ears. It is not even clear if we are looking at a human or some kind of alien-human hybrid. The luminous device in front of the patient could be a hospital monitor or a laptop showing them the outside world, where presumably others are also falling ill. Fully isolated, perhaps asleep or comatose, the person instinctively claws the blanket in what may be a fever dream or nightmare.