George Grey Barnard, born Bellefonte, - (Untitled-Woman and Serpent) - ca. 1915-1925 - T-Shirt

A reclining woman with long, falling hair lies beside a coiled, scaled serpent in a single sweep of warm red chalk.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built in two tones: vermilion red chalk on cream paper. The red dominates, with the paper showing through as a calm field around the forms. The sheet runs horizontally, like a frieze. The woman sits at the right, her head inclined and her hair curling loosely over one shoulder, while her body trails into a tail-like form across the lower edge. At left, the serpent rears up with a spiked, fin-like crest, its head turned toward her. Fine scribbled strokes suggest the ground, and a few small pebble-like shapes sit along the base.

Meaning & Symbolism

Pairing a woman with a serpent recalls a long tradition in which the snake signals temptation, danger or transformation. Here the figure's half-serpentine body links her to the creature, so the two read as one idea: attraction and peril held in balance. George Grey Barnard, an American sculptor, worked with allegorical and mythological subjects, and this drawing shows him working out such themes in preparatory form before modelling them. The sheet is dated to about 1915 to 1925, when he was producing figurative and decorative sculpture. It is held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

Bringing the Drawing to the Chest

The horizontal arrangement suits the wide span of a front print. Worn, the serpent rises on one side and the reclining figure stretches across the other, so the composition reads as a single scene as you move. Up close, the scribbled ground and fine chalk strokes show the hand of the artist, and the red keeps the image sharp against the shirt.