Trachtenmädchen 1925

Cuno Amiet painted Trachtenmädchen with visible brushstrokes and a muted palette, really emphasizing the art-making process, the movement of paint. There’s this wonderful, almost ghostly quality in the way the girl is rendered. You can see the brushstrokes dancing across the surface, building the forms in layers of thin, semi-transparent paint. It’s not about perfection, but about the energy of the hand. The yellow of her bodice really pops against the pale white of the dress. Then there’s the confident little strokes that define the edges of the fabric, or the way the ground is articulated with a few dark marks. They remind me that painting is really about noticing, and then fearlessly responding to what you see with whatever is at hand. Amiet’s work reminds me a bit of Paula Modersohn-Becker, a contemporary, both artists seemed to be interested in capturing the essence of their subjects with an economy of means. Art isn’t about answers, it’s about the questions we ask and the conversations we have with each other.