Siesta

Frank Duveneck's Siesta (1886) is one of his Italian figure subjects — depicting a figure asleep in the afternoon heat, the traditional southern European rest during the hottest hours of the day. The siesta subject connected to the Orientalist tradition's fascination with Mediterranean and Near Eastern indolence as perceived from a northern European perspective, but Duveneck's treatment is more genuinely observational than exotic — he was an artist who lived in Italy rather than a tourist projecting fantasies upon it. The sleeping figure offered both technical challenge and human intimacy.

The sleeping figure presents Duveneck with a subject of absolute physical relaxation — the specific quality of a body at rest in heat. His dark Munich-influenced handling renders the relaxed pose with broad strokes that suggest the heaviness of the sleeping form. The Italian setting — warm light, simple interior or outdoor space — is handled with the atmospheric looseness of his best Italian plein air work. His palette is warm and Mediterranean, the flesh tones of the sleeping figure emerging from the darker surrounds.