Chorus Girls

A fundamental painter and writer of the Generation of '98, the Madrid-born Gutiérrez Solana described a scene in Madrid, Escenas y Costumbres (1918) very similar to the one in this painting, likely inspired by a real experience.

We are looking at a rare genre painting, as if disguised under the appearance of something else. The costumes the "chorus girls" are wearing or removing could have composed a scene of regional types or Spanish clichés.

The questionable status of the figures (actresses or prostitutes?), half-dressed and absorbed in their actions while ignoring the spectator, indicates that the scene describes something else: a vulgar, crowded, and claustrophobic dressing room where the figures are lined up due to a lack of space.

Linked to "Black Spain" and the legacy of Goya, Solana's work seems to show a sordid traditionalism. However, his intention is not critical: his paintings merely present places, characters, and objects without judging or delighting in the decadence or ugliness they portray.

As in this painting, the faces are expressionless and ordinary, the nudity lacks any eroticism, and the women, interrupted in a moment of privacy, appear neither seductive nor surprised; they are simply there, each attending to her own business.

The most unsettling figure in the painting is undoubtedly the woman in mourning, with a grim face, who directs a penetrating gaze at the spectator as if reproaching their boldness for peeking into this private scene. In the context represented on the canvas, one might think of her as a kind of "dueña"...

...a widow who rigorously guards the young women, who are probably prostitutes. everything about her conveys discomfort: her pose, cornered in a corner; her hands, tensely holding a fan of the cheap souvenir type featuring a bullfighting scene; and her handbag, firmly gripped against the intruder's prying eyes.

Unlike the "dueña," one young woman gives an expressionless welcome to the spectator, raising a glass and looking out of the frame with cross-eyed eyes. She does not seem surprised by the visit; lounging in her chair, she limits herself to a greeting made out of courtesy or habit.

Her attire, which she has already partially removed, aims—like that of her companions—to have a regionalist reference, such as that of a woman from the countryside or the sea. Sitting on her underskirt, she indolently displays her underwear.

The wine or liquor the young "sailor" is drinking has come from the bottle which, along with two half-full glasses and a tray, composes a small still life in the lower right corner. Thick brushstrokes of white paint feign reflections to give texture to the materials, the glass, and the metal.

The curious thing is that, although these types of objects are typical of a still life, the entire painting behaves in the same way: human but inert "objects" that simply occupy a place in space just as the bottle and glasses do, lifeless and without connection between them.

Arranged in a line within the cramped space of the locker or dressing room, the figures are almost made of wax—mannequins frozen in the intention of a movement that will never occur. We could be looking at a diorama or a shop window rather than a scene from real life.

A collector of wax figures and mannequins, Solana endows his characters with that same appearance, painting—as Machado said—"with insane voluptuousness the living as dead, the dead as living." The skin, with a texture made plastic by the glimmers of light, accentuates the sensation of artificiality throughout the painting.

The appearance of their skin, with a texture like plasticized by the colors and the glimmers of light sliding over it, amplifies that sense of artificiality in the whole picture.

The mirror, a common resource for expanding space, does not broaden perception here. It only reflects a wall with clothes and a figure avoiding her own reflection, breaking the connection with the spectator. Everything remains narrow, impassable, and mired in its misery.

All elements of the composition are outlined with a thick black contour, which accentuates the artificiality of the scene and its members, and almost its unreality, despite the realistic appearance of the figures and all the elements.

The effect it produces is that of independent forms pasted onto the canvas, as if they had been "placed" on the stage afterward to "assemble" the composition. This also accentuates the distance between the characters and the spectator.

We are faced with a disturbing scene where the real is confused with the unreal, the living with the inert, and the human with the object. It is a painting that is difficult to stop looking at and that launches continuous questions at our perception.