Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), American

Two Spirits, Oil on canvas

_{La Salle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA}

The figures are modeled by light, pastel-like color harmonies of soft peach, ivory, and cool blue and gray, applied in strips and circular patches. They are surrounded by a dark background of viridian almond-shaped “leaves” on an umber ground. The background acts as a projector, propelling the central unit of figures and cushion up and forward like a cloud of sun-lit vapor swept by a soft breeze.

The front figure’s upper body turns to the right, framed by the two arms that move down and slightly to the right, the hands turned at the wrists in a soft triangular bend. This sets the shoulder to the left back while the shoulder to the right slopes downward, an arc-shaped line stressing its roundness. Both arms become a series of soft descending curves, their gentle broken outline accenting the lightness of the volumes. The breasts echo the diagonal slope of the shoulders and begin a series of descending gentle, rounded volumes from the belly to the hip where this figure joins the rear figure in a downward flowing skewer pulling to the left and stressing the relative spatial oneness of the two figures, literally joined at the hip. The belly itself is a soft, pulling to the left triangle continuing the theme of downward flowing softly glowing color volumes.

The figure’s head pulls further to the right, the orange-burnt sienna hair hugging the face like a tight fitting cap thereby accentuating the gentle curve of its outline. Between the frontal figure’s bent head and the rear figure’s backward leaning head, a soft, dark and diamond shape of background pulses back creating a pocket of space deep enough for both volumes to fit.

The frontal figure’s right leg crosses its bent back left leg at the thigh. This twist creates a triangle where the right foot meets the right wrist and again where the right shin meets the left thigh both between the knees and between the thigh and ankle. At this scalloped edge of the “cushion,” the soft volumes of back figure’s foot, knee, and front figure’s foot and hands join with the edge of the cushion to sweep up and around to the rear figure’s raised and rounded shoulder. The curve of this shoulder meets the cushion here in a rounded heart shape mirroring the two similar shapes in the lower left corner of the picture where the cushion floats away from the background. Aiding the buoyancy, the back figure’s foot pushes against the edge of the canvas as it tilts upward and creates another triangular bend at the lower left side of the picture. This smaller area of “cushion” balloons to a large arc as it lifts and pushes off to the right of the canvas.

At the top center, the back figure is pressed against the front one, her head hanging back and her shoulders slanting downward to the left countering the right downward flow of the forward figure. The front figure leans forward and against the back figure’s head suggesting, illustratively, a moment of intimate conversation. The two figures shoot upward from their joined hips like stalks out of bulb.

Both color volumes, while luminous, are compartmentalized by the soft-peach and gray broken lines, pencil thin on the arms of the front figure and the torso of the back figure. The thigh and bent back knee of the front figure is modeled by directional triangles that push to the left, accentuating the horizontal projection of that color volume. The light impasto of the color creates a crusty, rugged surface without adding heaviness to the volumes themselves. The highlight on the cushion to the left of the back figure’s left arm becomes a crusty arc echoing the bend of the wrist and hand and moving the series of color volumes that were the foot and hands of the front figure to the right.

In the background, the dark brown on the lower left and lower right closes off the space recession. The foliage on the right hangs suspended in front of the brown ground opening up shallow space behind. The leaf shapes echo the hands, tending to points and soft almond shapes. In the lower right corner, the red echoes and balances the orange-red of the front figure’s hair. The background thus divides into three bands: to the left of the heads, dark green upward pulsing leaf shapes are set on the brown ground; in the center, black creates enough space for the two heads; and to the right, the downward hanging leaves against a lighter brown opens up a suggestion of space. On the whole, however, space is very shallow.

In Two Spirits, Davies has created gentle patterns of movement within an intrinsically figurative setting. Illustratively, the picture depicts two nude women wrapped together in a moment of physical intimacy. Decoratively, the central, light and luminous color volumes with their undulating color outlines contrast with the dark, suggestive background in which they float. Details are minimized. Limbs, torsos, and heads become sensuous intersections and flows of subtle, harmonious color relations. Finally, these series of soft, gently luminous, undulating and buoyant color volumes float in shallow and compressed space. What could have been an erotic depiction of physical intimacy between two women becomes, instead, a work of art.

Analysis by Marilyn Bauman