Figure from the Back (Rückenfigur)

Figures seen from behind, looking into the scene as we do, so we share their view but never see their face.

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About

A figure seen from behind stands between the viewer and the scene, looking where we look. We share the view but not the face. The German term Rückenfigur is tied to Caspar David Friedrich, whose Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c. 1817) and Woman at a Window (1822) turn solitary backs into vessels for longing.

The device is older and wider. Giotto placed hunched mourners with their backs to us at the front of his Lamentation (c. 1305) in Padua, and Gerard ter Borch let a satin gown carry the drama of Gallant Conversation (c. 1654). Vilhelm Hammershøi painted his wife Ida turned away in quiet Copenhagen rooms around 1900, and René Magritte made the idea uncanny in Not to Be Reproduced (1937), where a man sees only his own back in a mirror. Gerhard Richter's Betty (1988) shows his daughter looking away just as her portrait is made.