Interior With The Artist's Daughter Analysis

A similar situation also appears in Bell’s later interior scenes. While the artist returned to a more figurative style in 1916, her later interior works demonstrate a composition that is neither specifically figurative nor purely abstract. Two later works by Bell, 8 Fitzroy Street, 1930 (Fig. 52) and Interior with the Artists Daughter, 1935-6 (Fig. 53), suggest the artist’s ongoing interest in decorative design and abstraction. Both works depict Bell’s living space: her London studio at Fitzroy Street and her country home in Sussex. In Interior with the Artist’s Daughter, the young woman is seen sitting in an armchair at the artist’s studio in Charleston, absorbed in her book and seemingly unaware she is being watched. In the work, our gaze must maneuver around the patterned table and textile walls seen to the left of the foreground in order to gain access to what can only be understood as the private space of the female sitter. While more figurative then her works produced between 1910 through 1915, the artist has clearly maintained an interest in the creative, independent space of the female narrative seen in works such as The Bedroom, Gordon Square, 1912 (Fig. 18). Though subtle, Bell has also maintained an interest in abstraction. Note the two slabs of expressive, vivid color palette, specially the white …show more content…
Boldly interpreting new ideas about art and domesticity, Vanessa Bell clearly did not lament her domestic world, eager to place it within the realm of the modern. This study attempts to expand the understanding of Vanessa Bell’s innovations as an artist by exploring her work produced between the years of 1910-1915 within the larger context of modernity, effectively arguing that her domestic works developed new models of negotiating the spaces of femininity within