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Birthday By Dorothea Tanning Summary

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Dorothea Tanning’s painting Birthday from 1942 is an oil on canvas self-portrait. The painting’s prominent subject is a woman who is standing alone to the left of the canvas. She is dressed uniquely in a dark brown ruffled skirt that reaches all the way to her calves. On the sides of her skirt, there is an abundance of vine-like roots overflowing from the back towards the front. Her top is an open, purple, green and white decorative jacket; revealing her bosom, chest and some of her torso. With her left hand, she is holding onto one of the many doors that are behind her yet she is looking off in a different direction from these doors. The woman has no shoes on and to the right of her feet is an animal that looks like a combination of a cat and bat that has big yellow eyes and large wings. The outfit choice of the woman reflects not only modernity but also antiquity thus, making the time represent the turn of the century. This combination of modernity and antiquity reveals something new which attributes to the portraits name, Birthday. Behind the woman and animal beside her, is a long hallway that seems to be never ending of open doors; showing that the paintings’ setting is indoors. The exact location is unidentifiable because there is no furniture to indicate where she is, which signifies a sense of isolation. Though the look on the woman’s face and the hallway of doors initially give a perception of loneliness and unknowingness, the colors, composition, and lines create a

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