Clarice Beckett and Mood

This essay discusses the role of mood in Clarice Beckett's painting “Evening, St. Kilda Road,” 1930. To begin I briefly discuss the difference between moods and emotions. Then I examine various philosophical treatments of how artworks are expressive, including views of Tolstoy (direct communication), Carroll (audience arousal), and Robinson (use of a ‘persona’ in the work or in its composition). I apply these to Beckett's work by examining some of its distinctive features in comparison to somewhat similar paintings by Childe Hassam and J.M.W. Turner. Finally, I describe some recent treatments of mood in film theory, by Sinnerbrink and Plantinga, who define mood as a holistic sort of creation of a “world” in film. Painting has different resources from film, but it is still possible to describe the kind of world Beckett presents in her work: one that is detached but serene and not melancholy.