Close-Looking at Helen McNicoll’s Interior

In this video we have animated Helen McNicoll’s painting Interior (around 1913, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of Ontario.) The elements that show the movement of light and give evidence of the room’s recent occupation by someone are highlighted: a robe, tossed on the chair, which may tip over at any moment, and a row of footprints on the carpet. The brilliant shaft of sunlight that streaks across the carpet and up the dresser moves with the sun. Through the departed figure, unstable chair and shifting ray of sun, McNicoll has made the passage of time the subject of this painting.