The Last Leaf

Painting is a powerful motif throughout the short story that complements in particular the theme of Art as a Transformative Force. All three main characters are painters, and the role of painting in their lives is substantial. Painting is much more to them than just a career—if their painting even manages to earn them money at all. Painting represents the capacity of these characters to infuse hope in one another, despite all odds. It is integral to their friendships, a key part of what brought them together and continues to keep them together in the same unique setting, a small part of the city populated by painters.

The motif of painting seems to augment Henry’s broader message that hope is not necessarily easy to maintain. When the doctor asks if something “is troubling” Johnsy, the first thing that comes to mind for Sue is that Johnsy “always wanted to go to Italy and paint a picture of the Bay of Naples” (13); in contrast, “a man” (that is, a presumed romantic interest) seems hardly “worth being troubled about” (13). Similarly, old Behrman “drank too much” (15), seemingly affected by having decades of failure to his name: “[f]or forty years he had painted, without ever painting a good picture. He had always talked of painting a great picture, a masterpiece, but he had never yet started it” (15). Holding on to hope wears at the characters. All the “waiting” and “thinking” involved is grueling. In discussing Johnsy’s decision to die, the doctor declares, “It is a weakness” (13). The “it” in the doctor’s statement is vague—the doctor is most likely referring to Johnsy’s death wish, but other possibilities include Johnsy’s lack of a man or even the “little lady” herself. Regardless, Henry’s depiction of how hope wears on the characters, often depicted by the toll that painting takes on them, suggests that Johnsy is not to be mocked.