Femme regardant au loin 

Victor Brauner created this oil painting called "Femme regardant au loin." The subject is abstracted into geometric forms that suggest a woman with multiple perspectives, quite literally "looking afar" in multiple directions. A palette of warm reds, yellows, and pinks is tempered with touches of black and pale green, creating a disquieting effect. Brauner synthesizes Surrealist interests with Cubist fragmentation. The woman’s head is a cube showing three faces at once. These faces, along with the single eye on the top plane, force a consideration of how identity can be both multifaceted and singular. The stiff ruff around her neck and rigid arm holding what looks like a hammer bring a mechanical feel to the figure. The painting’s semiotic structure of disjointed forms and clashing perspectives destabilizes a unified notion of self, reflecting anxieties about identity in a rapidly changing world. In this piece, Brauner uses formal distortions to explore the fragmented human psyche.