Abstract

Lily Furedi’s Subway (1934) is full of individuals. It is a painting of a subway car filled with people on their way home from work. At first, these individuals appear rather isolated, just doing their own thing. But upon closer examination, a viewer notices something rather peculiar, namely that these individuals are surreptitiously, unconsciously, uncontrollably interested in each other. A couple quietly leans in for a kiss; a man watches furtively as a woman applies her make-up; a woman reads over the shoulder of a fellow passenger; and the viewer’s eyes fix on a sleeping man holding a violin case. Furedi places her viewer on this subway and in so doing allows her to catch sight of individualism in its private..