OIL PAINTING: Wild Flower, 1881
Stott painted Wild Flower, a studio composition based on an unknown child model, in Paris during the winter of 1880 and recorded the picture in a notebook as 'Jeune-fille-en blanc / Fleur Sauvage /Paris, exhibited Cercle des Arts Libereaux, 1882'. The title Wild Flower may symbolize childish wilfulness, while the first part of this entry clearly alludes to Whistler's "The White Girl of 1862": indeed, the lack of narrative in Wild Flower, together with the model's unbound auburn hair and inscrutable expression, not to mention the white background, rug and fallen petals, all suggest a conscious appropriation of Whistler's iconography. However, the theme of tainted innocence subtly implied in The White Girl is treated with much greater daring in Stott's image, with its startling juxtaposition of vulnerable exposed flesh against soft fur offset by brittle roses. Both the crease across the girl's stomach and her downcast exhausted
demeanour create an intimation of violation made all the mor