Nirwana
1928
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
Accession Number
1986.65.136
Tags
About this artwork
In Buddhist and Hindu traditions, Nirvana is the ultimate liberation, a state of existence free from all suffering or desire. This painting, however, suggests that the artist did not think his own end would be quite so peaceful. The hovering vulture, falling figure, and melting sun painted in somber colors express the sense of desperation that the German poet Ernst Eckstein described in a poem: "And lonely sounds in the endless space/ The Song of everlasting dead" (Sidney Janis, They Taught Them...