Bacchante

Figural realism was the dominant mode in American painting throughout the 1930s, when many artists strove to respond directly to the urgent, and often dire, social issues of the day. The Woodstock colony artist Alexander Brook was something of an exception in his preference for “studio pictures” of the sort that had been more current in the twenties, and in which a model’s physical presence was the primary subject. In Bacchante, the placement of the model’s hand enhances the masklike quality of the face and creates an arresting mood.