The flag in the room

A daughter of English immigrants, Cossington Smith had no sympathy for the anti-conscriptionists or an Australian nationalism that posed itself against England. Yet the break she made with conventional perspective, her brilliant use of colour and her interest in surface texture were seen as unpatriotic. This work is a small but significant work completed during the Second World War. It echoes the tension in her earlier war paintings between duty and loss for the women among whom she lived. It depicts a domestic scene dominated by an armchair and a flag, which was painted in the sitting room at 'Cossington' where the family lived in Turramurra on the northern outskirts of Sydney. The flag is a Union Jack. While the chair dominates the composition, the eye is drawn to the dark space of the cushion. An empty chair in an empty room is loaded with symbolism through a sense of absence. The image emanates the loss and emotional desolation that was experienced in every household from which the men had gone to war. Even the dog basket on the floor beside the chair is empty. Almost in spite of this, the tone of the painting is acceptance rather than protest. The flag hangs behind the chair, illuminated from behind through glass panels in the sliding doors that separate the reds and greens of the sitting room from the cooler colours of the dining room beyond. There, glimpsed through the half-open door, a woman - the artist's sister - sits with her back to the door, engaged in war work. Despite the apparent loss alluded to in this work, the woman depicted represents those left at home who continued supporting the war effort, believing (or, perhaps, hoping) that their loved ones hadn't died or were injured for nothing.