![Entreaty Entreaty](https://www.premioceleste.it/indi/_pics/9/3/2015-83644-340535_39324_4565_t.jpg?m=1435342848)
Entreaty
Size: 100 x 78, Edition 8
Size: 50 x 39, Edition 8
In Entreaty, we again see in pregnant woman. She is standing, till below the waistline, en profil as in an early renaissance female portrait. Her expression is somewhat introverted. The image is framed by a window, through which we can see an atmospheric sky above the vague contours of a city. The red clothing she wears leaves her pregnant belly uncovered and with her left hand she makes an explicit gesture that can point to a request; the title of the work, Entreaty, a ‘plea’ or ‘request’ coincide. Striking is her appearance, she has make up on, wears lipstick and is carefully modelled.
To Belkina the creation of new life is a happening that leaves nobody indifferent, and that calls for mixed emotions. Joy but also anxiety. The fear for the unknown and a feeling of loss. The loss of a seemingly unbreakable bond and the loss of a state of being that preceded. The exclusive mission of motherhood places the woman in a position of loneliness and caring. On the one hand this is a particular emotion, on the other hand this is a universally given state. Belkina’s choice for this representation of the en profil portrait from the fifteenth century early renaissance, confirms this duality. The en profil depiction of a person refers to both a general applicable portrayal of a person, remember the portrayal of royalty on coins, as to a specific individual. The tension between these two qualities is depicted in the less confronting en profil – rendition then the frontal portrayal of a person.
In this sense the expecting mother shows herself both introverted, directed inside, as conscious to her larger surroundings, the world outside herself. Belkina translates this double attitude in the appearance of the woman that is more worldly then intimate and in the somewhat deformed window in front of which she poses.
The title of the work, Entreaty, suggests both. A plea for consolation and support in such a personal state of existential transition in which a woman finds herself in her, in many ways, frail state.
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