Art Analysis: 'Throwing Off Her Weeds' By Richard Redgrave

Throwing off Her Weeds, a painting by Richard Redgrave depicted the scene which a seamstress was showing a widow a lilac-coloured dress in front of a scrap screen. This piece was painted in 1846, Britain. This oil-on-panel piece is currently located in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Britain. Redgrave uses colours to illustrate unity and variety. The whole background and the dressing table are composed of yellow, red and brown. This massive use of warm-toned colour creates unity. Also, it contrasts with the vivid colours of the three women, then creates variety. Moreover, the colour choice of Redgrave suggests the focus in this painting. The green and black colours of those women’s dresses contrasts with the muted warm colours of the background so that those women easily stand out from it. Also, the intense black colour of the widow’s dress appears to be the darkest value in the piece. This creates a strong visual interest to capture audience’s eyes onto the focus, the widow. Redgrave uses implied lines to create eye movement in this painting. The gazes of the three women are the implied lines. Firstly, the gazes of the seamstress and the maid direct audiences’ eyes to the widow. Follows the gaze of the widow on her necklace, then …show more content…
This piece shows a seamstress’s visit to a widow, instead of a widow go out to shop. Apparently, it shows that widows at that period of time were bounded by social isolation to only accept visit of close friends and not allowed to visit public areas. Ergo, according to what provided in this piece, it is not uneasy to notice that women’s influence was only limited in their homes. After losing their husbands, women were set apart from the society. Widows were left helpless and served extremely low social status. All of these above prove that women served a passive role under the unhealthy social culture in the Victorian