Vavpotič's painting At the Window from 1915 deals with the motif of a figure looking out of a window.
This subject became important in the third decade of the 19th century
among German, French, Danish and Russian artists. The window, which the artists
place at the centre of the composition, serves as a metaphor for unfulfilled
longing. Painters defined this feeling in their depictions of quiet interiors
with contemplative figures, often representing studios with artists at work and
open windows overlooking the city or landscape. The most widespread and popular
motif of this type was that of female figures depicted from the back in front
of a window. In such installations, the emotional state of the female figure,
whose face is not visible, can only be judged by the painted elements in the
space in which the artists placed her. More telling are the scenes in which the
artists allow us to see the female figure in profile.
Vavpotič's composition is realistically descriptive. The woman's
posture, her anachronistic costume and the anxious gaze out of the window,
while imbuing the painting with nostalgic historical references, depart from
the traditional romantic impression. The profile of the painted lady reveals
the direction of her gaze. The female figure is not looking out of the window
at the cityscape and beyond it at the endless untouched nature, which in the
first half of the 19th century signified a longing for a happier present and
future.
Perhaps Vavpotič has deliberately, almost theatrically, staged a motif
with historical content in this painting in order to conceal the real message.
The window slats create a net that keeps the female figure inside and in the
past. The painter uses an elegant detail to show us the obscured cause of this
situation.
A small bouquet of blue flowers is painted on the windowsill in the
centre of the picture. The flowers, bereft of green leaves, are simply bundled
together without any decorative ribbon and, importantly, are not placed in a
vase of water. Thus, we might be dealing with a painted bouquet called a
corsage, which comes from the French term 'bouquet de corsage', meaning a
bouquet of flowers worn on the upper part of the body, since 'corsage' in
French means a corset worn by women according to the dictates of fashion. In
the 19th century, corsages were a gift during courting. Traditionally, a man
would bring a bouquet of blooming flowers to his female companion, who would
attach it to her dress when they attended a formal dance. When fashion style
changed and it became impractical to pin bouquets to the dress, the flowers moved
to the wrist. Such bouquets were traditionally dried and kept as a souvenir.
The way in which the tiny bouquet is depicted is also reminiscent of
Manet's famous 1872 still-life of violets with a fan, which he gave to a fellow
woman painter and a friend whom he greatly admired. The painter straightforwardly
expressed the nature and complexity of the relationship with the choice of
flowers - violets in the 19th century stood for secret love, affection and
loyalty.
The flower bouquet placed next to Vavpotič's anxious lady suggests that
it symbolises a promise of unfulfilled love. We cannot be sure that the bouquet
is made of violets, since the flowers cannot be identified. There are not very
many sorts of blue flowers, however, and often the colour is of greater
symbolic value than the type. Blue flowers mostly stand for patience, longing
and eternal love, but also for melancholy and loss.
The painter used lighter tones for the motif, so perhaps the fate of the
depicted woman is not as tragic as it might had been in the 19th century. A woman
destroyed by infatuation, wasted by unrequited love, seduced by unrealistic
ideals or duplicitous lovers, was often found in Pre-Raphaelite art, as well as
in the 19th century Victorian paintings and literature.
The Vavpotič's painting, however, is not really about the social
exclusion due to the strict moral code that was forced upon women, but rather it
conveys personal worries and anxieties, which trap the woman into a cage of
fear and abandonment.