La femme sans tête

2005

Not on view

In La femme sans tête (The Headless Woman) deep sympathy combines with shuddering horror upon confronting the recognizable shape of a human form that appears simultaneously lifelike in its anatomical details and dermal texture, and lifeless by its mutilations and limp stance. Modeled in pale tinted wax, De Bruyckere's approach to rendering flesh draws lessons from the depiction of figures seen in the paintings of Rogier van der Weyden and Lucas Cranach. Painted in delicate hues that conjure alabaster skin, at the same time the figure seems drained of blood. This tension, in which the grisly processes of decay and decomposition appear to unfold before one’s eyes, makes the sculpture incessantly moving and compelling—the body reduced to biological matter in a depiction that verges on abstraction.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: La femme sans tête
Artist: Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, born Ghent 1964)
Date: 2005
Medium: Tinted wax, painted wood and metal
Dimensions: 47 1/4 × 33 1/4 × 33 in. (120 × 84.5 × 83.8 cm)
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of Ellen Stern, in loving memory of Jerome Stern, 2023
Object Number: 2023.573
Rights and Reproduction: © Berlinde De Bruyckere
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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