Entranced (The Lady in Black)

Hubert von Herkomer's 'Entranced (The Lady in Black)' (1886) is one of his more atmospheric figure subjects — the woman in a state of trance or deep absorption in something beyond the viewer's perception creating a subject with Symbolist implications despite Herkomer's generally more social realist orientation. The 'entranced' state connected to the period's widespread interest in hypnosis, Spiritualism, and altered states of consciousness, and Herkomer's engagement with this subject showed his range beyond his better-known social documentaries.

Herkomer renders the entranced woman with attention to the specific quality of psychological withdrawal — the figure's relationship to the space around her altered by her state, the expression of her face and the quality of her gaze directed inward or to something beyond the pictorial space. His handling of the black dress against the setting creates the compositional austerity that gives the subject its atmospheric quality. The woman's absorption creates the figure's characteristic psychological interiority.