Portrait of a deaf and mute girl
"The picture prompts one to think whether every sensitive person is not innately identified with others through a common weakness..."
Excerpt from Sanja Franković's review: "Patronage of white nettles - identification by the power of art and/or by the fragility of life?".
"In the pastel painting "Portrait of a Deaf and Mute Girl" (1899), Slava painted the girl Vera Papić from Selc, who stayed at the Institute for Deaf and Mute Children in Ilica, Zagreb. From the words of Ivan Otoić, we learn that this is an extremely tender picture, in which Slava identified with the little girl because of their equal fate. The teacher started from the description of the picture, but connected it with Slava's special emotional approach to the child. At the end, he gave his personal judgement:
"In the painting, the head of a child can be seen in half profile, cropped short on the forehead and back of the head, dressed in a white shirt. (...) The painting is dominated by the harmony of gentle tones. (...) A deaf-mute girl was sitting calmly in front of a deaf-mute girl. with deep understanding caught her innocent look of a little man who trustfully looks at life, not suspecting what is coming to him. The immeasurable upcoming suffering is felt in the atmosphere of the picture like a thunderbolt that will strike this whiteness and burn it like the head of a snowdrop, a snowdrop or a daisy. (.. .) The white color would be cold if there was no warmth brought into it. Have you ever seen a leaf so tinted that it seems to be alive before you, have you noticed at first glance the imperceptible center of the picture: just a slightly redder ear, the cause of future suffering, a shell opened in vain to a world that will deny it words and sounds. My lords, that's how pastel is painted, that's how that light layer of paint that breathes is applied to it. (...) It's the succuss of a painter's tenderness. In the painted face of a child, her own has come to life childhood and the bitter sadness of a female creature who knows that she will not have a child of her own. And as for Slava, I would have nothing more to say than that this pastel portrays HER, that it reveals to us not only her painting skills but also her character. (...)"
The image prompts one to think whether every sensitive person is not innately identified with others by a common weakness, which sometimes makes their bearers bigger people."
Taken from: Franković, S. Possession of white nettles - identification by the power of art... "Life and School", no. 24 (2/2010), year 56., p. 126. – 155.
