"Frailty is a Moment of Self-Reflection"

I have always had a passion for the elderly. Some of my favorite moments in life have been snuggling with my grandpa on the couch. I often find myself laughing and smiling while talking to a senior citizen; it brings me such joy.

My 19 years on Earth seem so small when I think about the 70+ years that senior citizens have spent here. Their lives are full of history, full of stories, and full of wisdom, so I try my best to get as much out of their stories as possible. They may look wrinkled, and sometimes fragile, but it is the many years of life on Earth and many years of experience that has made them this way.

This leads me into why Eric Fischl's "Frailty is a moment of Self-Reflection" is my favorite painting. Sometimes our memories are just flashes of images we remember in our past. We cannot always remember exact scenarios or where we were when we had a certain conversation. I think that it is the flashes of memories that stay with us the most in life.  When I first saw “Frailty is a moment of Self-Reflection” at the Frist it instantly seemed as if it were a flash of a memory. I made up a story in my mind that this is a flash of a memory of a grandchild as he/she was walking down the hallway in the early morning and catching grandpa fresh out of the shower.  I thought of this painting as a flash of a memory because Fischl has painted the man so that the old age is obvious and present, however, the details are blurred. The painting catches the frailty and old age of the man as if the grandchild only spots grandpa for a split second, but because it was so unexpected the image will stay with the young child for the entirety of his/her life, and one day he/she will look like him.

The warm, neutral colors of “Frailty is a Moment of Self-Reflection” make the image peaceful. The colors are toned down from the hue making the time of day seem to be just after sunrise. The way the light in the image is placed reemphasizes the peaceful morning the man is having. The curved lines of his body make him look sleepy in the early morning, and add to the idea that it is just a glimpse that is being portrayed. The contrast of the dark staircase against the bright hall depicts that someone else in the house may still be sleeping, and that the man is tiptoeing.

Eric Fischl incorporated many aspects of life into this piece that I adore. The old man, the peaceful early morning, and the flash of a memory make “Frailty is a Moment of Self-Reflection” my favorite painting.