The Gipsy Woman

Gypsy Woman is the oil-coloured work of finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck on canvas from 1919. This work measures 66×55.5 cm in size and is part of the donation collection of Nanny and Yrjö Kaunisto of the Ateneum Art Museum.

Helene Schjerfbeck's Gypsy Woman is an expressive cry of anguish and despair of an introverted person. There's really nothing clear about a gypsy woman other than this. In a painted work painted in earth tones, which Schjerfbeck occasionally rubbed to get the colour out of it, the sitting woman protects herself with her hands not to see and hear. Schjerfbeck used only a few shades of color close to each other in the Gypsy Woman painting to depict this curled, aggressively withdrawn woman. 1919 was a year for Helene Schjerfbeck herself, when she went through her feelings of disappointment after good friend Einar Reuter announced her surprise engagement in the summer. Helene was hospitalized that year for a while because of her heart in the fall. His art darkened in subjects and tones in those times clearly. The Gypsy Woman has been compared to Edvard Munch's famous painting Huuto. Aggressive despair is expressed in these two jobs only the exact opposite. While Munch's character expresses his fear out, Schjerfbeck's Gypsy Woman withdraws. The character's essence is more like munch's Melancholy (1906/1907) character.