"Aunt Fanny" (aka Old Lady in Black) by George Bellows

I do not consider myself a person who fully appreciates or completely understands the beauty and meaning behind a piece of artwork. I do however enjoy being able to look at a creation and make my own interpretations about what the artist might be trying to convey. Nobody but the artist is certain what the artwork stands for and there are even times when artists themselves are unsure of what message they were trying to send. The artwork came about from what the artist was feeling at that particular moment in time. The artist may never be able to interpret their artwork into words.
Sontage states that, “While a painting or a prose description can never be other than a narrowly selective interpretation, a photograph can be treated as a narrowly selective transparency.” (p.6) My question behind this statement is, what happens when a painting is the result of a photographic image? Does the fact that the artist recreated a picture by painting the same photograph take away from the interpretation that the viewer is entitled too, merely because the photographer of the original image captured a specific transparency?
When I first saw “Aunt Fanny” (aka Old Lady in Black) I was immediately intrigued, partially because I love portraits. The aspect I enjoy the most about looking at a person in a picture or painting is the interpretation or story of their life that I am allowed to create in my own mind. An established and possibly the only true fact about this painting is that George Bellows created “Aunt Fanny” in 1920. What I do not know as an observer is whether or not Bellows was painting the portrait based on a woman posing in front of him, a photograph he held in his hand, a memory of a woman he once knew, or even a figment of his imagination.
The lady, Aunt Fanny, strikes me as a woman who was once strong willed and was in complete control of her life. However, this painting has captured Aunt Fanny in a vulnerable moment in time. She seems pleased in her facial expression yet she is very dark and distant. Bellows might have painted her to try and capture both her old strong self and her new fragile self. I make this assumption because the woman has a small fragile face with many wrinkles from a hard life lived. I feel like Bellows captured a piece of her past by making Aunt Fanny’s hands large and strong like a man would have yet her wrinkles are still prevalent. I just wonder if Aunt Fanny was a real woman, would she be pleased with her image that has been left behind for all to see?
“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.” (14) Sontage makes this statement while expressing her thoughts about cameras being violent on the same level as guns. I can understand where she is coming from on a certain level. Today we have individuals who happen to fall into a career that puts them in the camera lens and into the public eye. Some people are fine with the exposure they are inevitably forced to deal with. Maybe this is due to the fact that the camera has yet to cross them. With others, the camera infringes upon the basic rights that humans hold to privacy. The problem with the camera is where do we draw the line? Will this continued exposure of people’s personal lives eventually ruin us as a society?

"Aunt Fanny"
Ann Gute