"Flora" by J. Alden Weir

This piece was painted in 1882, when the Women’s Suffrage movement was in full swing. By this time, several territories including Wyoming and Utah had granted women the right to vote. Women were becoming comparatively more independent and beginning to break out of their simple role. The woman depicted in the painting seems to be content with her life, despite her lack of rights.
Weir painted this as the Romantic period was ending. The romantic period was characterized with escapes from modern realities and an emphasis on heroic qualities of its characters. While his sister is very subdued and quiet, definitely a conservative women, because she is alone, she is significant to the piece. From her elegant clothes and sophisticated hair style, it can be inferred that she belongs to the upper class. The women of the upper class had more influence, but I do not believe that this woman used her status to promote this cause. I believe that Weir chose to paint her because she was heroic in the sense that she was happy with her fortune and didn’t want anything that might detract from her current life style. New rights and voting privileges were not something she needed to make her happy.
The women is sitting alone, clearly escaping her day to day duties, if even just for a moment. She is sitting fingering the flowers looking into the corner at the unknown. She is portrayed as downhearted. I believe she came outside to take a break from whatever may be troubling her in her life and she surrounded herself with the beautiful flowers for comfort. The predominant color of the painting is white - her dress, the flowers - which symbolized purity. However, in the bottom right corner, there is a red flower that is not the same as the surrounding white ones. The red flower could be symbolizing what is out of place in her life and is causing her to be upset. As much as she surrounds herself with goodness and tries to make herself wholesome, there is still that corner of her conscience that reminds her of past wrongdoings.